The main complication of NAFLD and NASH is cirrhosis, which is late-stage scarring in the liver. Cirrhosis occurs in response to liver injury, such as the inflammation in NASH . As the liver tries to halt inflammation, it produces areas of scarring (fibrosis).
NAFLD has several phases of progression, which include simple steatosis, steatohepatitis, fibrosis, cirrhosis, and ultimately could even progress to hepatocellular carcinoma.
Cirrhosis has become irreversible. Diagnosed at stage 3, the 1-year survival rate is 80%. It's during stage 3 that a liver transplant may be recommended. There's always a risk a person's body will reject the transplant, but if accepted, 80% of transplant patients survive more than 5 years past their operation.
The third stage of NAFLD is fibrosis;
However, if over time, the scar tissue starts to replace a lot of the normal liver tissue, the function of the liver is affected. This can lead to cirrhosis.
If you've been diagnosed with any fatty liver disease, let your health care provider know if you have any symptoms that mean the disease is getting worse. These include fatigue, loss of appetite, weight loss, weakness, fluid retention, or bleeding.
Another 20% to 30% of individuals progress to more advanced NASH fibrosis, and the final stage is NASH cirrhosis. It used to be thought that progression from early stage NAFLD to cirrhosis took decades, but recent studies have shown that some people progress rapidly within 2 years.
It takes upwards of ten years for alcohol-related liver disease to progress from fatty liver through fibrosis to cirrhosis to acute on chronic liver failure. This process is silent and symptom free and can easily be missed in primary care, usually presenting with advanced cirrhosis.
Possible signs and symptoms of NASH and advanced scarring (cirrhosis) include: Abdominal swelling (ascites) Enlarged blood vessels just beneath the skin's surface. Enlarged spleen.
It can lead to much more serious conditions including cirrhosis and liver failure.” The good news is that fatty liver disease can be reversed—and even cured—if patients take action, including a 10% sustained loss in body weight.
When left untreated, fatty liver disease can progress to inflammation, fibrosis, and cirrhosis. Scarring due to cirrhosis isn't reversible. If you develop cirrhosis, it also increases your risk of liver cancer and liver failure. These complications can be life threatening.
You may live the rest of your natural life without having any complications from it. It becomes more complicated for a small percentage of people when it turns to steatohepatitis (NASH), and especially when NASH progresses to cirrhosis. Research suggests that NAFLD overall may lower life expectancy by four years.
Early-stage NAFLD doesn't usually cause any harm, but it can lead to serious liver damage, including cirrhosis, if it gets worse. Having high levels of fat in your liver is also associated with an increased risk of problems such as diabetes, heart attacks and strokes.
An average period of 6 weeks to 2 months is an expected timeframe to recover from fatty liver disease. However, lifelong adherence to particular diet and lifestyle changes may be necessary to prevent relapse.
Fatigue in non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) is significant and associates with inactivity and excessive daytime sleepiness but not with liver disease severity or insulin resistance.
Pain in your liver itself can feel like a dull throbbing pain or a stabbing sensation in your right upper abdomen just under your ribs. General abdominal pain and discomfort can also be related to swelling from fluid retention and enlargement of your spleen and liver caused by cirrhosis.
Patients with alcoholic fatty liver disease who continue to consume large amounts of alcohol daily have been found to have a risk of 8–30% of developing fibrosis or cirrhosis after 10 years.
We conclude that fat infiltration of the liver is well correlated with amount of abdominal fat. Fatty liver tends to be more strongly associated with VF compared to SF. In other words, if a non-obese patient exhibits fatty liver, the patient may in fact have visceral obesity.
Your doctor will look for signs of fatty liver disease, such as: An enlarged liver. Signs of cirrhosis, such as jaundice, a condition that causes your skin and whites of your eyes to turn yellow.
Patients can live for many years with NAFLD, but many – about 30% – eventually end up with an inflamed liver or NASH (non-alcoholic steatohepatitis), and scarring. Of these, about 20% will develop end-stage cirrhosis, which can lead to liver failure and cancer.
Patients with compensated cirrhosis have a median survival that may extend beyond 12 years. Patients with decompensated cirrhosis have a worse prognosis than do those with compensated cirrhosis; the average survival without transplantation is approximately two years [13,14].