What is NASH?

NASH, or nonalcoholic steatohepatitis, is a severe form of fatty liver disease and is caused by a buildup of fat in the liver. Kevin Soden, MD, discusses risk factors for NASH and what you can do to help protect your liver.

Transcript

00:00

You may not even realize you have NASH until you get to a further stage in the disease.

00:11

NASH is a acronym used to indicate a fatty liver. And that is a build-up of fat in the liver that causes

00:19

of a cirrhosis of the liver. In other words, a liver begins to fail because there's not enough liver left to do the healthy things it needs to do.

00:31

The increase in NASH is directly related to the increase in obesity in the United States and around the world.

00:38

Obesity is one of the biggest risk factors that we see in patients who have NASH. The increase in diabetes type 2 is also a risk factor.

00:46

And we're seeing a large rise in this as well. This is why it's so prevalent today compared to 50 years ago.

00:55

Unfortunately, there are no treatments for NASH. It is simply a matter of trying to protect your liver for as

01:02

long as possible. Losing weight, getting your diabetes under control, these are two other things that we recommend for people.

01:09

But other than that, there are no medications out there and no magical cures.

01:16

The main thing we can do is prevent further liver disease as much as possible. And for some people, this is stopped

01:23

drinking alcohol, stop taking medications that may affect your liver, and finally, losing weight. [MUSIC PLAYING]