Life Expectancy With Fatty Liver Diseases People stay healthy despite suffering from the disease following a normal routine. The life expectancy with fatty liver disease decreases from 3 to 4 years because such patients develop other chronic diseases such as cardiovascular or diabetes.
Non-alcohol related fatty liver disease isn't life-threatening by itself. You may live the rest of your natural life without having any complications from it.
It may take 30 years for fatty liver to turn into cirrhosis (unless the patient has a genetic predisposition), so the typical age people are diagnosed with cirrhosis is 60. That said, people are becoming obese at a younger age now.
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.
Fibrosis progresses at a speed of 0.07 stages/year in NAFL and 0.14 stages/year in NASH, so NAFL progresses by 1 stage every 14 years and NASH by 1 stage every 7 years (4).
NAFLD treatment includes diet and exercise with a target 7–10% weight reduction. Treatment goals include improvements in liver fat content, liver inflammation, and fibrosis.
According to the American Liver Foundation, there are no medical treatments – yet – for non-alcoholic fatty liver disease. So that means that eating a healthy diet and exercising regularly are the best ways to both prevent liver damage from starting or reverse liver disease once it's in the early stages.
Avoiding Alcohol
Moderate or heavy alcohol use can cause additional damage and fat accumulation in the liver in people with NAFLD. Therefore, patients with NAFLD should avoid alcohol entirely if possible.
Fatty liver disease is a build-up of fats in the liver that can damage the organ and lead to serious complications. Risk factors include obesity, a high-fat diet, high alcohol intake and diabetes mellitus.
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].
Can fatty liver disease be reversed? The liver has an amazing ability to repair itself. If you avoid alcohol or lose weight, it's possible to reduce liver fat and inflammation and reverse early liver damage.
Both NAFLD and alcoholic fatty liver disease are usually silent diseases with few or no symptoms. If you do have symptoms, you may feel tired or have discomfort in the upper right side of your abdomen.
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).
How do doctors treat NAFLD? Doctors recommend weight loss to treat nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD), either nonalcoholic fatty liver (NAFL) or nonalcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH). Weight loss can reduce fat, inflammation, and fibrosis—or scarring—in the liver.
Bottom Line: Nutrition plays a major role in improving fatty liver disease. Additionally, many foods are good for fatty liver, such as bran, salmon, coffee, berries, sunflower seeds, eggs and garlic. Be sure to include these nutrient-dense options regularly and always consider your overall diet and lifestyle habits.
Advocates claim that conducting a cleanse with apple cider vinegar helps to flush toxins from the body, regulate blood sugar levels, and encourage healthy weight loss, all of which can improve liver health. However, there's little scientific support for these claims.
Go for a 45-minute walk either in the morning or evening. Walking can help keep at bay many lifestyle diseases from diabetes, blood pressure, heart diseases to fatty liver.
People with non-alcoholic fatty liver disease have extra fat in their liver that doesn't come from alcohol. Weight loss and exercise are the basic recommendations for obese people who have NAFLD.