transplants in Europe is going up,
Professor Karlsen says.
Pharmaceutical companies in
Europe are working with researchers
to develop drugs for NAFLD and
expect some to arrive on the market
around 2020. But the good news
is that many patients don’t even
need them. Unlike other organs,
the liver has a remarkable ability
to regenerate itself, and as long as
NAFLD has not progressed into
NASH, it is reversible. A multi-
university study by researchers in
Sweden, Finland and the United
States in 2018 found that reducing
carbs consumption for just two
weeks reduced NAFLD significantly.
The Other Major Culprit:
Alcohol Overuse
On December 3, 2014, when his
hometown Stoke-on-Trent in
Staffordshire, England, was settling
into the Christmas mood, Richard
Allen was vomiting blood. He and
his wife called an ambulance.
The doctors told him he had liver
cirrhosis—bands of scar tissue so
thick his liver grew benign tumors.
Cirrhosis can increase blood
pressure in the portal vein that
connects the liver with the intestines
and other organs, creating smaller
blood vessels in the stomach
that can burst and then cause
internal bleeding.
Richard knew that alcohol was
to blame. Whenever his depression
struck, and the medications stopped
working, the now 66-year-old
retired security specialist reached
for the bottle. “Every three to four
weeks, I was drinking for three to
four days,” he says. As liver cells
try to metabolise an overload
of alcohol they die out, leading
to inflammation and scar tissue
formation, or fibrosis, and cirrhosis.
Doctors removed two of Richard’s
largest tumors but told him he
would need a liver transplant. Some
patients wait for a donor match for
years—and die before they get it.
But Richard was lucky. On October
1, 2016, he received his new liver
at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital
in Birmingham, after a five-hour
surgery—and went home nine
days later.SURVIVING AN EPIDEMIC
42 • JULY 2019
PHOTO COURTESY OF RICHARD ALLENAfter he gave up alcohol for six months,
Richard had a transplant. He now helps
spread the word about liver disease