Reader’s Digest UK – July 2019

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 ALLEN

After he gave up alcohol for six months,

Richard had a transplant. He now helps

spread the word about liver disease