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Hey, Dr. Berry here. In this quick video I'm going to talk to you about a topic that is so important: fatty liver and how to cure it. That's right, cure it, get rid of it, so you don't have it anymore. Fatty liver disease is a huge epidemic in the US, the UK, Australia, and Canada, and you're going to wind up losing a loved one you cherish to fatty liver if we don't start turning the tide on this epidemic. Before I get started, please take one second and click the subscribe button, so that every time I have a bright idea you'll be one of the very first to know.
Now, fatty liver disease is a huge epidemic that you may never have heard of at all. Maybe you have, but if you haven't, you need to, and so do your friends and neighbors. Fatty liver is also called non-alcoholic fatty liver disease, or, if the liver is inflamed, we sometimes as doctors call it non-alcoholic steatohepatitis. All these things mean basically the same thing: your body has inappropriately stored fat in your liver. That is not a good thing. It's a huge risk factor for liver failure, for death, and for heart disease. We'll get into all that in just a few minutes. Let me give you a few facts about fatty liver disease and how common it is. You're going to be blown away by this. At the end of this video I'm going to tell you how to cure fatty liver and help yourself or a loved one.
First of all, thirty to forty percent of adults in the US and in most Western societies have fatty liver. Three to four out of ten. That's nuts, that's ridiculous. Fatty liver is self-inflicted, and I'm going to tell you how to cure it, but three or four out of every ten adults you know may have fatty liver disease. What about kids? Of course kids don't have this, right? No, you're wrong. One out of every ten kids in America, as young as three years old depending on how terrible their diet is, can have fatty liver disease. There are actually teenagers on the liver transplant list now because of their fatty liver disease. All doctors in America should literally hang their heads in shame that this is occurring, because it is 100% preventable and 100% curable if you eat the right diet and do the things I talk about later in this video. If you're a type 2 diabetic, you have a 40 to 80 percent chance of having fatty liver disease. So if you're a type 2 diabetic, if you're overweight, or if you have insulin resistance, you're almost guaranteed to have fatty liver disease, so you really need to do what I'm about to talk about.
So why do we care? Because it is now the leading cause of liver failure and of people being on the liver transplant list. It's even more dangerous than alcoholism, than overdosing on Tylenol, and than having hepatitis. That's how bad fatty liver disease is. I want to teach you how to fix your fatty liver, how to help your mom fix her fatty liver, or your uncle, or your friend across the road, because if they have fatty liver, it's quite possible their doctor hasn't even made a big deal about it. But it is a huge deal.
So how do you fix fatty liver? You know me: I talk about the practical, the common sense, and what you can do today to begin fixing things. First I want to tell you the most likely things that are going to fix this, and then a few other things that might help a little. Always focus on the 80 percent, not the 20 percent. Focus on the big picture: what's really going to have the most effect for the least amount of effort. If you have someone who has fatty liver, is overweight, or is a type 2 diabetic, please share this video with them, because it could literally change their life and save it.
In Western society, in America, anytime we want to fix a problem, we want to buy something, go get something, or add something to the system. For fatty liver, like many of the chronic diseases we all suffer from, it's not a question of what you add. It's a question of what you subtract: what you stop putting into your system. Fatty liver disease falls perfectly into this category. If you want to cure your fatty liver disease, you have to stop fructose, sugars, starches, and simple carbs. That's it. That is the cure. I'm not joking. You could turn off this video right now, go make those changes in your life, and cure your fatty liver. I'm going to get into a few more details, so you might want to stay tuned, but that's the 80%: fructose, sugars, starches, and simple carbs. Those are poisoning your body. They make your biochemical digestive system inappropriately lay down fat in your liver and also in your pancreas. Fatty pancreas is also a very bad thing. I have another video on my channel about fatty pancreas if you want to check that out, but fatty liver, as we talked about, is a huge medical risk, so you've got to fix this.
Fructose, whether it comes from a soft drink in the form of high fructose corn syrup or from a delicious ripe organic peach, is digested completely differently in your body from other sugars and starches, and it's highly likely to be laid down as fat in your liver. So you've got to get fructose out of your life completely. But don't just think it's fructose and nothing else. Sugar is made up of glucose and fructose, so if anything is pre-sweetened, it's going to make your fatty liver worse or increase your risk of developing fatty liver disease. All simple sugars and starches, as soon as you eat them and your digestion breaks them down, turn into some combination of glucose and fructose. Even the carbs in broccoli ultimately break down into glucose and fructose, but they're so locked up in fiber and so blended with vitamins, minerals, and nutrients that I think it's okay to get those carbs from cruciferous vegetables and leafy greens, especially if you eat them raw or lightly steamed. They're so filled with nutrition that I think they're acceptable. But the starches from any grain whatsoever will make your fatty liver worse. You've got to stop the grains, stop anything that has fructose in it, and stop the sugars and starches. That's the solution, that's the cure. We could literally wipe out the epidemic of fatty liver disease by just following those things.
One more thing you've got to get out of your life, because it inflames your liver, which can cause your liver to lay down more fat than it otherwise would, is vegetable oil. Canola, safflower, and soybean oil all have to go. They inflame your liver, which makes your liver lay down fat, which you do not want. Cook your foods in real fats like bacon grease, lard, avocado oil, olive oil, and butter. Those are the things to cook in. If you have canola oil in your kitchen right now, pause this video, get up, go to the kitchen, and throw that stuff in the garbage, because that's where it belongs.
Now, other things you can do might help with fatty liver, and these are the 20%. Don't focus on these. They're just extras that you can add after you're already doing the 80%, for maybe a little added benefit. One is vitamin D. Low vitamin D is associated with worse fatty liver disease. That does not mean low vitamin D causes it, but supplementing might help a little, so make sure you're taking a good quality vitamin D supplement every day. Taking glucophage, a prescription medication, has been shown in a couple of studies to be associated with improving fatty liver. That does not mean it definitely improves fatty liver, but it doesn't hurt, so you might consider continuing it if your doctor has you on glucophage or metformin. Omega-3 fatty acids probably help fatty liver a little. That does not mean go buy a supplement. I would prefer you eat more grass-fed meats that contain omega-3s, more pastured eggs with omega-3s in the yolk, and more grass-fed butter. That's probably going to help the fatty liver.
Now, some things absolutely don't do for your fatty liver. If any guru or health expert says, "I've got this liver cleanse, I've got this liver supplement," no. That is a waste of money. You don't need it. All you need to do is focus on the 80% I talked about earlier. Do not buy pills, powders, or supplements; none of that is going to help your liver. You don't need to add anything to this equation. You just need to subtract the poison and get it out. If your doctor says to take a statin drug to get the fat out of your liver, there's no research showing that at all, so don't do that. Your doctor may instead say you should take Actos or Avandia because some research shows they help with fatty liver. If you look at the research, it's dumb. Don't take Avandia or Actos; those are not good type 2 diabetes medications. Focus on metformin or glucophage. Metformin and glucophage have a false reputation for being hard on your kidneys, but that's dumb. What's really hard on your kidneys is high blood sugar and high insulin levels, which is what destroys them. So if your doctor says to take some glucophage, that's probably a good thing to do, but don't think it's the solution. The solution is to fix your diet.
There are two other ways you don't want to fix fatty liver unless they're a last-ditch effort. One is bariatric surgery: stomach stapling, the duodenal switch, any of those procedures. Try fixing fatty liver with your diet instead of surgery. Surgery works, no doubt, but what a sacrifice, what a compromise, to have permanent, unchangeable surgery on your gastrointestinal system rather than just fixing your diet. I don't get the logic there. The last way to fix fatty liver is a liver transplant, and if you don't fix your diet, that may one day become your only option: waiting on the transplant list for someone to die so you can have their liver. I really don't recommend that as a way to do this at all.
Focus on the 80%. If you want to add the 20% and you have the money and means, that's okay, but that's not the solution. The solution is to fix your diet in just the ways I described above, and then you will have virtually no chance of developing fatty liver disease, unless you're a heavy drinker, overdose on medications, or have hepatitis. If you enjoyed this, and you know someone whose life you could change by sharing this video, please do so. It helps me help so many more people when you share these videos. Also, if you really love the videos I make, I have a Patreon link below where you can throw a buck or two my way, so I have more time to make these videos to help you and others. This is Dr. Berry, and I'll see you next time.