Still searching for answers

A technician prepares equipment to monitor Martin Braun’s brain activity during a sleep study at the New York-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell Medical Center in New York on Wednesday, June 27. Braun, 76, stopped using his noisy CPAP machine and awkward mask, but now he’s trying again after a car crash when he fell asleep at the wheel.

Who hasn’t heard of the “Mayflower”, the ship that brought pilgrims to the U.S. in 1620?

What is rarely known is that towards the end of that voyage, it was necessary to ration beer, and some pilgrims died as a result.

In those days beer was safer to drink than water. It’s still a safe drink when used moderately, but excessive amounts can cause cirrhosis of the liver. And how many know that too much food can also cause nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) in young people and eventually require a liver transplant?

Today, the worldwide epidemic of Type 2 diabetes is well known. But liver disease rarely gets headlines. Yet, according to the American Liver Foundation, and some experts, 10 per cent of all children, particularly those with belly fat, and half of those who are obese, have NAFLD.

This should not come as a surprise to anyone who isn’t blind. Walk around any super market and witness obesity in adults. Then see how often their children are obese. The end result is that children are now developing adult diseases because of too many calories.

The Gifford-Jones Law states that one medical problem often leads to another and another. In this situation, as fat builds up in the liver it becomes inflamed. Scarring occurs just as it does in alcoholic cirrhosis, and this may lead to either liver failure or malignancy.

It’s ironic that excessive amounts of food can cause the same microscopic findings in the liver as alcohol. In fact, pathologists say that these changes are indistinguishable.

It’s also tragic that experts predict it will not be too long before NAFLD will be the top cause of liver transplants.