Nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) is one of the fastest growing metabolic diseases, together with type 2 diabetes.
As it can potentially destroy the liver and kill us, a large amount of research is being carried out to find treatments for it.
The journal Nutrients has just published a scientific literature review revealing a live organism that holds the key to cure NAFLD.
Inside your gastrointestinal tract, you have at least a thousand different bacteria that together form a colony of around a trillion bacteria.
As with the other bacteria in your body, some of these are beneficial or benign, while others are harmful. The aim is to have a colony in which the benign and beneficial bacteria outnumber neutralize the harmful ones by smothering and outcompeting them.
Probiotics are live bacteria that facilitate the growth of beneficial and benign bacteria in your gastrointestinal tract. They are abundantly available in kefir, sauerkraut, kombucha, natto, yogurt, apple cider vinegar, pickled food, and raw milk and cheese.
The authors of a new article conducted a literature review and found that an imbalance in gastrointestinal bacteria could contribute to NAFLD in several ways:
1. It can disrupt the digestion of fat, which, in turn, can cause fat to be stored rather than used as energy.
2. Because it destroys the intestinal walls and thereby allows toxins from the intestines to flow into the rest of the body, it causes chronic inflammation throughout the body, including in the liver.
3. It alters the chemicals that are responsible for processing foods, such as bile acids, short-chain fatty acids, some amino acids, and choline.
From the randomized clinical trials they surveyed, they concluded there was evidence that probiotics could promote a better gastrointestinal bacterial balance.
A healthier balance of good and bad bacteria promoted by probiotics has been found to have the following benefits for treating NAFLD:
1. It promotes the process whereby proteins are broken down to use as energy. Then, the fat inside the protein can be used rather than stored.
2. It reduces inflammation of the liver.
3. It reduces scarring of the liver.
This is not news to me. For years, I’ve helped hundreds of people to cure their fatty liver by rebuilding their gut flora.