What you eat and drink could be putting you at risk of deadly liver disease – even if you rarely touch alcohol.
Liver disease is rising rapidly around the world, with experts warning it could affect up to 1.8 billion people by 2050 unless diets and lifestyles improve.
Once seen largely as a condition affecting heavy drinkers, it is now increasingly being diagnosed in people who drink little or no alcohol.
This form, now known as metabolic dysfunction-associated steatotic liver disease, or MASLD – formerly called non-alcoholic fatty liver disease – is driven by factors including obesity, type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure and unhealthy diets.
It often develops silently, causing no obvious symptoms for years. As a result, many people have no idea they are living with it until significant liver damage has already occurred.
Left unchecked, fat can build up in the liver, triggering inflammation and scarring. In some cases, this can progress to cirrhosis, where healthy tissue is replaced by permanent scar tissue, as well as liver failure and liver cancer.
MASLD is also considered the liver manifestation of metabolic syndrome – a cluster of conditions including excess body fat, raised blood pressure and poor blood sugar control – which also increases the risk of heart attacks and strokes.
Fatty liver is now the only major disease in the UK for which death rates are still rising, and liver disease kills around 12,000 people in Britain every year.
Liver disease is the only major disease for which UK death rates are escalating. Cases of metabolic dysfunction-associated steatotic liver disease have increased by 143 per cent over the last three decades
‘In the late 70s, thousands of manmade chemicals were introduced to our diets, in the form of emulsifiers, additives and pesticides, and now we are seeing this explosion in fatty liver,’ Siggi said.
‘One of the most frustrating things for experts is that around 80 per cent of people with fatty liver don’t show up on tests and go undiagnosed,’ said Siggi Clavien, founder of The Liver Clinic.
‘And yet, given the chance, the liver is an incredibly resilient organ responsible for more than 500 bodily functions, from regulating hormones to repairing cells.’
Experts say diet is a major part of the problem – with sugary drinks, ultra-processed foods, excess calories and poor metabolic health all helping to fuel the rise.
‘The biggest misconception is that alcohol is the only thing that causes liver disease. But 70 per cent of cases are not related to alcohol at all. The major culprit is ultra-processed food.’
Here, Siggi breaks down the foods to avoid to protect your liver, and those that may help give the organ a much-needed boost.
Ultra-processed foods are the worst thing you can be consuming when it comes to liver health
In November last year, a group of world leading experts concluded that ultra-processed foods have adverse effects across nearly every single organ system in the body – with the liver faring particularly badly.
And with the average person consuming 56 per cent of their daily calories through UPFs, the risk of fatty liver disease is worryingly high.
UPFs are often packed full or artificial sweeteners, flavours and emulsifiers which can disrupts the body’s hormones and accelerate the progression of the disease.
But the main problem with UPFs, Siggi says, is that they are all too easy to consume, resulting in excess fat – and one of the first place this fat is stored is the liver.
Sugary drinks could be quietly increasing your risk
Drinking just one can of fizzy drink a day – full-fat or otherwise – has been shown to dramatically increase the risk of liver disease.
Chinese researchers analysed the diets of more than 123,000 British adults and found that those who guzzled sugar-sweetened drinks like Coca-Cola had a 50 per cent increased likelihood of developing the condition.
By comparison, low or non-sugar-sweetened drinks such as Diet Coke or Sprite Zero Sugar, raised the risk of MASLD by 60 per cent.
‘There are a couple of reasons why diet sodas are so bad,’ Siggi says
‘While our livers and guts have been trained to process sugar molecules for decades, artificial sweeteners are entirely manmade.
‘The liver can recognise fat and sugar, but it doesn’t recognise all these new substitutes, so it puts all its energy into fighting this unknown fat and in doing so lets fats and sugars through, resulting in inflammation.’
‘They also increase oxidative stress, so in reality you’d be better off having a glass of red wine than a diet coke,’ Siggi added.
Non-fizzy drinks such as fruit juice and smoothies can also be damaging to he live, as they are packed full of fructose – a type of sugar is predominantly metabolised by the liver.
When too much is consumed, it places the liver under strain and triggers inflammation.
Experts warn that failure to ban nitrites from bacon and ham despite sounding alarm a decade ago has cost thousands of lives
Limit your intake of red and processed meats
Processed meat – which has been preserved by smoking, curing, slating and adding preservatives and includes things like sausages, bacon and ham- is associated with a higher risk of bowel cancer.
But it can also wreak havoc on your liver too.
‘The body isn’t used to processing all these additives, preservatives like nitrates that would not normally be used in home cooking,’ Siggi explains.
‘The liver really struggles to process these foods. Typically, it converts sugar to fat, but when it’s faced with unknown substances, it lays down fat to try and protect itself.’
But contrary to popular belief, Siggi says there’s nothing wrong with eating a bit of red meat – in fact we’re genetically predisposed to be able to process it.
However, leaner is always better as red meat is higher in saturated fat, which can overtime contribute to low-grade inflammation.
Processed meat can also be high in salt, and increase the risk of high blood pressure, which can put added stress on the liver and heart.
For this reason, the NHS advises eating no more than 70g a day of processed and red meats a day.
Any type of alcohol is toxic to the liver – but some drinks are more dangerous than others
Alcohol will cause damage – but some drinks are definitely more dangerous than others
‘Alcohol is a toxin and it does cause liver damage – but there are moderate health benefits that come with drinking a glass of red wine.
‘It’s a lot better to drink sensibly throughout the year than to do things in extreme,’ Siggi says.
He recommends saving your alcohol for time spent socialising.
‘Every blue zone diet in the world promotes a sense of community around drinking, and there’s no reason we shouldn’t do the same,’ he says.
‘Toxicity load is dramatically different depending on the alcohol, but mixers are guaranteed to make it worse.
‘When you mix a low grade alcohol with an artificially sweetened or sugar ladened mixer, you’re essentially hitting the liver with two toxins at the same time – meaning your liver never gets a break.
‘The absolute worst thing you can do for your liver is drink a cheap spirit with a mixer and then take a paracetamol; That’s why binge drinking is so dangerous.’
Following a Mediterranean diet could have a protective effect
To keep your liver functioning well, experts recommend following a Mediterranean style die
To keep your liver functioning well, experts recommend following a Mediterranean style diet – rich in vitamin C, fibre, healthy fats and antioxidants – to help protect the organ against free-radical damage and reduce levels of inflammation.
‘Extra virgin olive oil, fish, wholegrains and vegetables can also help reduce liver fat and keep so-called bad cholesterol level in check,’ Siggi says.
Drinking five cups of coffee a day could slash your risk of liver cancer
The health benefits and risks of drinking coffee have been incredibly well-documented, with studies linking the morning pick me up to everything from high blood pressure to brain health.
Now researchers say coffee drinkers are significantly less likely to develop liver cancer or die from liver disease.
Analysis of the coffee consumption of more than 350,000 adults found that those who drank five or more cups a day were 50 per cent less likely to develop liver cancer compared with non-coffee drinkers.
And its powerful anti-inflammatory effects benefited decaf drinkers too.
While experts are still unsure exactly why coffee posses this unique power, its thought its protective effects lie in its combination of bioactive compounds and antioxidants, which help prevent and reduce scar tissue.
‘Coffee brings a lot of blood into the liver – which can grow by up to 40 per cent when it’s working hard – helping cells function efficiently, aiding tissue repair and regeneration and allowing the organ to filter substances from a larger volume of blood.’
However, Siggi warns, it’s good to be mindful where your coffee is coming from.
‘When coffee is stored incorrectly, it can go mouldy. When we inhale these spores, mould can get into the bloodstream and the liver, increasing the risk of toxicity and inflammation.’
This is particularly dangerous for people with a compromised immune system who find it harder to fight off infections.
So who is most likely to get liver disease?
Once thought to be a condition that mainly affected heavy drinkers, cases in people who rarely or never drink alcohol have soared in recent years – driven by obesity, type 2 diabetes and high blood pressure.
For this reason, people from poorer socioeconomic backgrounds are likely to be hit the hardest, Siggi says, with ultra-processed foods being the most available to them.
‘Genetics also play a role,’ Siggi added, ‘which is why we see people who are thin developing fatty liver;.
Obesity has also been a major driver of the rise in non-alcoholic fatty liver disease, with around two third of Brits now considered to be overweight or obese.
But around seven in 10 with the devastating disease will not be aware they have it.
