Find information on thousands of medical conditions and prescription drugs.

Fatty liver

Fatty liver or steatosis hepatis is a reversible condition seen in chronic alcoholism and many other conditions, where large vacuoles of lipid accumulate in hepatocytes (the cells of the liver). Accumulation of fat in liver cells will cause the liver to enlarge. The lipid within the vacuoles is a particular type of lipid known as triglyceride. Triglyceride molecules consist of a glycerol backbone with three fatty acid molecules joined on. more...

 Home
Diseases
A
B
C
D
E
F
Fabry's disease
Facioscapulohumeral...
Factor V Leiden mutation
Factor VIII deficiency
Fallot tetralogy
Familial adenomatous...
Familial Mediterranean fever
Familial periodic paralysis
Familial polyposis
Fanconi syndrome
Fanconi's anemia
Farber's disease
Fascioliasis
Fatal familial insomnia
Fatty liver
Febrile seizure
Fibrodysplasia ossificans...
Fibromatosis
Fibrosarcoma
Fibrosis
Fibrous dysplasia
Filariasis
Fissured tongue
Fitz-Hugh-Curtis syndrome
Flesh eating bacteria
Fluorosis
Focal dystonia
Foix-Alajouanine syndrome
Follicular lymphoma
Fountain syndrome
Fragile X syndrome
Fraser syndrome
FRAXA syndrome
Friedreich's ataxia
Frontotemporal dementia
Fructose intolerance
Fructose-1,6-bisphosphatase...
G
H
I
J
K
L
M
N
O
P
Q
R
S
T
U
V
W
X
Y
Z
Medicines

Causes

Many chemicals, such as alcohol and drugs can cause fatty liver.

Fatty liver can occur in diabetes mellitus and in pregnancy. It can also be seen in starvation and obesity. In addition, it is also a minor symptom of hepatitis

Pathology

Fatty change represents the intracytoplasmic accumulation of triglyceride (neutral fats). At the beginning, the hepatocytes present small fat vacuoles (liposomes) around the nucleus - microvesicular fatty change. In the late stages, the size of the vacuoles increases pushing the nucleus to the periphery of the cell - macrovesicular fatty change. These vesicles are well delineated and optically "empty" because fats solves during tissue processing. Large vacuoles may coalesce, producing fatty cysts - which are irrevesible lesions. 1

Treatment and prevention

The treatment of fatty liver depends on what is causing it, and generally, treating the underlying cause will remove the problem.

Read more at Wikipedia.org
• [List your site here Free!]

The effects of pantethine on fatty liver and fat distribution - Abstracts: recently published abstracts - Brief Article
From Alternative Medicine Review, 10/1/01

Although the prognosis of fatty liver depends on its causes, we feel from our clinical experience that fatty liver with hypertriglyceridemia has a good prognosis and responds well to treatment. In this study, 600 mg/day of pantethine was administered to 16 outpatients with fatty liver and hypertriglyceridemia for six months or longer to examine whether the drug improved fatty liver using abdominal plain computed tomography (CT). Nine of the 16-pantethine patients were no longer diagnosed as having fatty liver after the study period. An chi2 test indicated the significant disappearance of fatty liver. At the same time, the visceral fat calculated from the CT image passing the umbilical region was also significantly reduced. On the contrary, the subcutaneous fat area tended to increase, so the ratio of the visceral-to-subcutaneous fat area was reduced significantly. This indicates triglycerides may be pooled in the body as hepato-visceral fat and subcutaneous fat, and that pantethine may transfer fat from the liver and viscera to the subcutaneous tissue. This suggests that visceral fat deposition and fatty liver occurring with hypertriglyceridemia may have a common basis, probably excessive matrixes, and that pantethine may simultaneously improve the two conditions.

Osono Y, Hirose N, Nakajima K, Hata Y. J Atheroscler Thromb 2000;7:55-58.

COPYRIGHT 2001 Thorne Research Inc.
COPYRIGHT 2001 Gale Group

Return to Fatty liver
Home Contact Resources Exchange Links ebay