Your liver is a powerhouse organ, performing a wide variety of vital functions that keep you healthy. Whether it’s metabolizing nutrients or producing proteins and storing iron, your liver works hard 24/7.
Protecting the health of your liver requires taking steps to maintain wellness in your daily habits. Given how crucial the liver is, it makes sense to keep it in tip-top shape.
Here are three tips for optimal liver health:
- Limit alcohol intake: Alcohol is metabolized by the liver. Drinking too much alcohol can damage liver cells and potentially even lead to serious problems like cirrhosis and liver failure.
For healthy adults, drinking in moderation means no more than one drink per day for women and two drinks per day for men. Avoid binge drinking, which is four or more drinks on a single occasion for women and five or more drinks for men.Alcohol is a common cause of fatty liver disease, but it’s not the only factor that can play a role.
- Maintain a healthy weight: Carrying excess weight, especially around the belly, is a risk factor for developing metabolic dysfunction-associated steatotic liver disease (MASLD), formerly referred to as non-alcohol related fatty liver disease (NAFLD). When the liver becomes overwhelmed by excessive fat content, it becomes inflamed in its effort to function optimally. If MASLD goes unchecked, it can progress to the point where liver damage occurs and affects organ function, a condition known as steatohepatitis.
Though there is no medication currently available to reverse fat build-up in the liver, weight management is a key step in protecting your liver health. Research shows that losing even just 5% of your body weight can significantly improve liver health.
To keep your weight in a healthy range, limit added sugars, saturated fats and trans fats (e.g., sugary drinks, fried foods, processed meats) as much as you can in your diet. Focus more on whole, unprocessed foods like fruits, vegetables, lean proteins, whole grains, nuts and seeds. Additionally, remember to stay active with a goal of at least 150 minutes of moderate exercise per week.
- Consider checking on your liver health with testing: One of the trickiest parts of taking care of your liver is that it can be hard to know how your lifestyle habits are affecting your liver. Symptoms like jaundice (i.e., yellowing of the skin and eyes), extreme fatigue, edema (i.e., swelling of the legs and abdomen) and nausea often only develop when liver disease has progressed into late stages of the disease process. However, in the early stages, liver disease often has no symptoms at all.
That’s where a liver function test can be helpful. With Labcorp OnDemand’s Liver Health Test, you can check the levels of key enzymes and proteins in your blood. Levels that are higher or lower than normal may be a sign of liver problems that you would want to discuss further with your healthcare provider.
Many common medications are processed by the liver, including over-the-counter pain relievers, statins and antibiotics. So, liver testing is often used to check for potential side effects related to metabolizing those medications.
Regardless of why you might seek a liver health test, this simple blood test can be an empowering way to take control of your health. After your blood draw at a Labcorp location, you’ll receive your results online through your Labcorp Patient portal account. From there, your results can inform important conversations with your healthcare provider and put you on the right track toward optimal liver health.
