#1 Absolute Worst Fatty Liver Advice Your Doctor Gives You

Hello Health Champions, today we're going to talk  about some of the worst advice for fatty liver that people are getting even to this day. One  thing people are being told for fatty liver is that you should eat frequent small meals. Now,  the problem is that if you have a fatty liver, you are already insulin resistant, and if you  eat frequent meals, you're getting frequent insulin spikes because every time you eat,  your body has to release some insulin.

So, if you're insulin resistant and you eat frequently,  you're further promoting more insulin resistance, and this insulin promotes fat storage—that's what  insulin does. It's one of the things insulin does: it stores fat and prevents fat burning, and  that's, of course, the thing that you're trying to do—you’re trying to get that fat burned out of  the liver, you're trying to metabolize that fat, but with high levels of insulin, that becomes  virtually impossible. And with frequent meals, there is almost never any time where  insulin drops and you could burn that out, so frequent meals mean that you can never  really do anything about that fatty liver.

I did another video on fatty liver a couple  of years ago, and I got a lot of comments, so I want to mix in some of these comments as  they relate to the things we talk about. One viewer commented on a previous video and said that  when they took their fatty liver to their doctor, they were told to eat five times a  day, otherwise you will overeat. This patient had learned some things by then, and the  frequent meals didn't make any sense, so instead, she said that I did intermittent fasting and low  carb, and she said that for her on that regimen, she had no cravings, she reversed her disease,  which was fatty liver and high blood pressure, and after that, she went off all medications. 

Again, as we give these examples, it doesn't mean that it's going to work like that  for everybody because we're all different, but we need to understand these mechanisms so  we can figure out what's going to work for us. When we talk about fatty liver, it's usually  called NAFLD, meaning nonalcoholic fatty liver disease. Why do they call it that? 

Because the liver is overloaded, and it used to be that they just called it fatty liver  disease, which was caused by alcohol. But today, most fatty livers are not associated  with alcohol—we've done something else, we've developed something new that is far worse  than alcohol in the frequency and prevalence of the damage it's doing. The number one factor here  is called fructose because these two substances, alcohol and fructose, are the two worst  things for the liver.

And why is that? They’re relatively natural substances; in small  amounts, the liver can process and deal with them, no big problem, but in large quantities, they  create huge problems for the liver because the liver is the only place that can process these  two types of molecules. So, we consume them, and you have 150 maybe 200 pounds of  body weight that can consume glucose, but only that little three-pound blob called  the liver can process these.

So, the chance of overwhelming the liver is far greater with these  two things than with anything else that you eat. The other big factor for fatty liver today is  insulin, which also causes insulin resistance. Between fructose and insulin, that is where we  get the insulin resistance and the fatty liver.

The problem here is that this becomes a vicious  cycle—insulin resistance causes nonalcoholic fatty liver disease, but then this fatty liver creates  problems on its own. It creates inflammation, changes metabolic signaling, and so forth, so  now the fatty liver makes the insulin resistance worse. Now we're stuck in this vicious cycle  unless we do something to address the root causes, which is that we put too much alcohol and/or  fructose and too much food stimulating insulin.

If we want to break that vicious cycle, we  have to start reducing these three factors. If you're wondering how big a  deal insulin and fructose are, it used to be that the only fatty liver was  caused by alcohol, but today alcohol-related fatty liver is only 10 to 25% of all fatty  livers, whereas insulin resistance fatty liver is 75 to 90%. The reason these ranges  are so wide and non-specific is, of course, that some people who drink also eat sugar and  vice versa.

But the vast majority of fatty liver today is caused by fructose and things  that stimulate insulin, and keep that in mind because you wouldn't feed your eight-year-old  a bunch of vodka—you would not saturate your child's liver with alcohol, so why do you do  it with fructose and things that drive insulin? The next piece of bad advice people are getting  from their doctors and nutritionists is to eat low-fat, high-carb if you have a fatty  liver. Here, basically, we as humans are stuck in primitive thinking.

We're thinking  that if the problem is fat in the liver, then that fat must come from fat we eat, so the  solution is to eat less fat. But these are very, very outdated ideas, and anyone with an  education and the slightest amount of biochemistry or physiology should know that  that's not how it works. If you eat a fatty steak that has a bunch of saturated fat,  it's not because that cow ate a bunch of saturated fat—the cow ate grass if  it ate what it was supposed to eat, and it developed the appropriate tissue balance  of protein and fat in its body.

In humans, most of the fat that we store is stored by insulin,  and insulin is triggered by carbohydrates. So, the vast majority of the food that stores fat  on your body is not fat, but it's carbohydrates, especially the sugars and starches that drive  insulin, and the fructose that clogs up the liver. Furthermore, what insulin does is it gives you  cravings because it's fat-storing and it blocks fat burning—you can't retrieve the fat that you  have stored if your insulin levels are high, and if you can't retrieve it, now you  get more hungry, you get more cravings, which lead to overeating, which of course  means you're stuffing your liver with even more stuff.

This is especially true if you  eat processed foods. If you eat low-fat, high-carb, and it's processed, that's  the absolute worst. But if you already have a fatty liver and are already insulin  resistant, now even whole grains, whole foods, unprocessed foods still have probably way more  starch and way more carbohydrates than your body can handle at that point.

Especially if  you're trying to reverse something, you have to take down your carb intake much more than if  you're just trying to maintain a balanced level. I had a viewer comment on this. She went to  her doctor and said that she had a fatty liver, and because she had a bad gallbladder that  basically wasn't kicking out any bile, the doctor said to eat a low-fat, high-carb diet. 

Even with the gallbladder, that didn't make sense to this viewer, so she said, "No, I'm going to do  the opposite—I'm going to do low-carb, high-fat. I'm going to eat real food. " Six months later,  she went back to the doctor, they did a CT scan, and what they found was she had a completely  normal image of the liver, she had normal gallbladder function, and her liver enzymes, which  had been high, were now in the normal range.

Now, if you try to imagine yourself in that situation,  you have just turned your health around, you found something that made sense, it seemed to work,  and then 6 months later, you have transformed your health—you are so excited that you want to  tell somebody, so you go tell this doctor what you have done. Then, of course, if that doctor is not  very happy, you're shocked—it's like, why would they not want to know what I did to reverse this?  But the problem is that most doctors have so much invested in their belief system and their routines  that it takes a lot of effort and courage to change that.

So instead of being happy, excited,  and wanting to learn, this doctor completely shut down the patient and did not want to know  anything about what she had done with her diet. The next piece of bad advice we get for fatty  liver is to avoid saturated fats. I'm not saying that saturated fats are all you should eat, but  you don't have to be afraid of them as long as you eat good, healthy foods and a good balance with  saturated and monounsaturated fats like olive oil, coconut oil, etc.

You will be okay. But instead,  they tell you to eat vegetable oil, and of course, there's no such thing as vegetable oil because  vegetables are extremely low-fat. What they're talking about are things like soybean oil, canola  oil, corn oil, safflower oil, etc.

What I cringe at is when you read a label, and then they say  they put certain things in, and then at the end, it says, "and/or. " How can you not know which  one you put in there? How can it even be close to legal to have labels like that where they don't  even tell you?

Is it whatever was the cheapest that month? Is that what it means? I don't need to  tell you to avoid all kinds of products like that.

Most of these so-called vegetable oils  have in common that their omega-6 to omega-3 ratios are usually very, very high;  for some of them, it's as high as 20:1, and that is a pro-inflammatory ratio. When we  eat a lot of these oils and we push our fatty acid ratio that much out of balance, that's  a pro-inflammatory state. But furthermore, these oils are also very, very harshly  processed—they're highly oxidized, they produce a lot of free radicals, they're very  unstable, and they process them with high heat and high pressure to the point where they even  alter the molecular structure.

That matters a lot because you have enzymes that fit like little  keys into each and every molecule—that's how you take them apart and use them for fuel or  building blocks. But when they process them that harshly and change the molecular structure,  you don't have the enzymes to take them apart, and instead, they become foreign substances and  toxins. In the process, they destroy these oils so that they stink and taste horrible, so  now they have to degum them and deodorize them to get rid of all those unpleasant  flavors.

Very often, they even use solvents to extract that last little bit of oil because  corn, for example, is not very high in fat—it's only a few percent fat to start with. It's  not like you just squeeze an olive and the oil comes out; with corn, you can't do that,  you need to use solvents, and very often there is residue of these solvents in there. So it's  like you get hexane or acetone in your oils, but because it's not an ingredient, they don't  have to put it on the label—it was just part of the production, so they don't have to tell you  how much of that is still in the product.

All of these factors combined mean that these oils  actually promote inflammation, they promote insulin resistance and fatty liver, which is the  exact opposite of what we're trying to accomplish. More bad advice for fatty liver is to  look for products that are low-calorie, sugar-free, low-fat, reduced-calorie, or low  glycemic. It's not that low glycemic is bad, but how did they get there?

For example, a lot  of these products are promoted as heart-healthy, and what it often means is that they process  them in a way that's very unnatural to get to that state and to get these properties. If  they're sugar-free, very often they will have artificial sweeteners in them—they'll have  aspartame, sucralose, acesulfame potassium, which are horrendous toxins for your body. Then  there are other things that are almost universally promoted as health food, like agave syrup or  agave nectar that they sell in health food stores, and almost universally, people believe this  to be a health product when, in fact, a lot of agave will have as much as 80% fructose—it's  like the ultimate high fructose corn syrup.

Then we have low-fat products, and I'm not talking  about leafy greens that are naturally low-fat. I'm talking about products that normally get their  character from the fats—we're talking about sour cream, mayonnaise, and salad dressing that you  eat because they have fat, they give you that rich feeling, that full flavor. If they create  a low-fat or a non-fat version, you have to ask yourself, if they took out the fat, which was  almost what that product was all about, now what's in there instead?

What is that product? The  answer is: it's a bunch of chemicals and harshly processed foods that you don't want. Some examples  would be modified cornstarch, maltodextrin, mono- and diglycerides, polysorbate 80, and this  list could be hundreds of items long.

What they all have in common is that they're chemicals that  don't belong in your body. And then, of course, because the original product got all of its  flavor from fat, now this product doesn't taste like anything, so now you have to add back flavor  in the form of artificial flavors and chemicals. You've got to love this: when the doctor  tells you just eat fewer calories, right?

Why didn't you think of that? That argument  ignores the hormonal effects of food—that it's not the calories, it's what happens in your body:  what pathways, what breakdown, what metabolism, what storage processes result from the hormones  and the food that you eat. If you already don't eat a lot of really good, healthy, natural  foods, and then you just try to eat less of it, that means you probably end up with some  nutritional deficiencies because you already ate depleted food, and now you just eat even less  of it.

But the biggest problem with that idea is that it causes suffering—you get hungry, you get  cranky, you get cravings, and if you're suffering, it's not sustainable. Nobody can maintain that  year after year after year, and as a result, suffering always fails, and you go back to the bad  habits that caused the problem in the first place. Another viewer went to the doctor with a fatty  liver, and he had really high liver enzymes.

These are released into the bloodstream—they're supposed  to be inside liver cells, and only a small, small amount gets into the bloodstream when cells break  when you have a normal turnover of these liver cells. But if your liver is in stress, if it's  starting to get inflammation and a huge turnover of these cells, then these numbers go up—they're  supposed to be in the 20s, up to maybe 30, and his numbers were in the hundreds. So, he  got really scared, and he asked his doctor, "What can I do about this?

Is there any way to  reverse this? " The doctor was actually informed, and he said, "You could stop eating sugar,  but you won't. " Isn't that sad that they've already made up their mind?

Some of the doctors  know there is a solution, but they assume that people will not follow through. But this viewer  must have had a mindset that was a little better than average because he simply said, "I'll see  you in 90 days. " Then he did all the things I talk about in my videos, and 90 days later, his  liver enzymes—ALT—were in the normal range again.

The tragedy is that very few doctors know  the correct action, but even the ones who do hesitate to tell patients because they assume  people won't follow through. There's so few people that follow through that why bother telling  anybody? I believe that's because there's so much confusion out there—people are drawn in so many  different directions, there are so many opinions, and everybody wants a quick fix.

Nobody wants  to really sit down and understand the issues, and if you're confused, then you're not going  to take consistent action. You're going to try this and try that, and you're going to pop around  between different things, and you never stick to something long enough to get the results. But  that's why I do the videos the way that I do, and that's why I'm so excited to be talking to you  because I know that you are a health champion—you don't look for the quick fix, you look for  an understanding so that you can take charge.

I know this is going to shock you because you  probably watched this video from beginning to end, but the average person, their attention  span is so short that on a 25-minute video, they watch about seven or eight minutes.  Believe it or not, for this type of video, that's a lot—most videos like this don't even get  close to that kind of view time. That's why I'm so committed to making videos like this, so that we  can create a community of Health Champions where people really start understanding what's going  on, so that we can get empowerment out on a wider level.

By really learning and understanding  these things, and telling others and giving testimonials in the comments, you help spread  the message, and you help empower others as well. Some more bad advice that people are told is  to eat more fruit. It's not because fruit is a bad thing that it's bad advice, it's because  modern fruit is so much sweeter than fruit used to be.

We have access 365 days a year to all the  tropical fruits from every corner of the world, and that's not natural for our bodies. If  we have a fatty liver, now we have lost the ability to process carbohydrates properly,  so even if that was okay 10 years ago, it's not okay once you have a fatty liver.  People are also told that not just fruit is okay, but juices and smoothies are fine.

The problem is  that we're getting concentrated forms of fructose and sucrose and glucose in all that fruit. You  can use a little bit of berries in moderation because berries have less sugar and more fiber,  so doing a handful of those is okay even if you're diabetic or have a fatty liver, but more fruit is  not better—not in the form of juice or smoothies. I do make smoothies from time to time,  but I don't make them all sugary and sweet because you can make a smoothie  with nuts and seeds, avocado, veggies, and you can put heavy cream in there.

You can  put some coconut cream, sweeten it with stevia, and flavor it with cocoa powder, so you can  make a chocolate smoothie with nuts and seeds, and it's delicious. Especially if you  try to balance out the stevia and the cocoa with a bit of salt, you can get a really  nice smoothie that works even on a keto diet. Another viewer comment from that previous  video I made was that his biggest moment was when he realized that the advice given was  the exact opposite of what you want to do to get rid of a fatty liver.

He said, "I got rid of my  pregnant look. " You know what he's talking about. He ate fatty meat and cruciferous greens and  vegetables, and if you base your food on that, even if you eat a lot of leafy greens and  a lot of cruciferous non-starchy greens, you can actually be in keto.

It doesn't mean that  you eat cheese crisps and butter all the time—you can eat real food with lots of fiber, lots  of greens, and have a ketogenic diet like he did. He said he did a 19:5 intermittent fasting  pattern—he ate twice a day, five hours apart, and he lost 103 pounds, reversed his  pre-diabetes, but most importantly, he developed a lifestyle so that two years  later, he was still successful. He finished his comment saying, "All thanks to the correct  information.

" But you have to take the time to develop an understanding so that you can  tell what's confusing and what's consistent. The next piece of bad advice is to take a  statin if you have a fatty liver. That's not saying that no one ever should take  a statin, but just because you have a fatty liver is really not a good reason.

Some  figure that all of these things are associated: if you have metabolic syndrome with high blood  pressure, high blood sugar, and high insulin, then you have a fatty liver and  you probably have high cholesterol, so let's just take a statin while we're  at it. Again, I'm not saying that no one should ever be on a statin, but if you have a  fatty liver or your total cholesterol is 211, those are not good reasons to take  a statin medication. You have to understand what's going on with you and  must address the root cause in your case.

What happens when you take a statin, especially  for the wrong reasons? Now this statin will block your production of CoQ10, an enzyme  that the body uses to make energy. This is part of the same metabolic manufacturing  pathway as cholesterol, so when you take a medication like a statin that will shut  off or block at least part of that pathway, not only are you shutting down cholesterol  production, but you're also shutting down your production of CoQ10.

As a result, you will,  to the degree that you shut down that pathway, shut down your production of energy, your  production of ATP, which is the currency that every cell in your body uses to make energy.  As a result, you dramatically reduce the amount of energy or ATP produced in your body. Where  does this hit the hardest?

In the organs and tissues that use the most energy—they're super  dependent on energy, and if you shut down that production, then those organs are going to lose  proportionately more. The brain, the heart, the liver, and the kidneys—rather important organs,  wouldn't you say? —those are the hardest hit.

If you have a fatty liver and you're trying to  help that liver clean up and metabolize that fat, you want to give it resources, you want to  take away the interfering factors like sugar, insulin, and alcohol, and maybe supply  some nutrients, but you don't want to shut down the energy production in that liver. How  is it supposed to heal and clean itself out and burn through that fat if it doesn't get any  energy? I made several other videos where I show you how to take care of your liver, how  to clean it and support it and detoxify it, etc.

If you enjoyed this video, you're going to  love that one, and if you truly want to master your health by understanding how the body really  works, make sure you subscribe, hit that bell, and turn on all the notifications so  you never miss a life-saving video.