Drinking sugary drinks doesn’t affect my liver that much, does it?
Soft drinks are something that many people enjoy. Often we choose this instead of an alcoholic drink to be ‘good.’ In fact, sugary drinks are seen as a nice way to enjoy a treat that isn’t that bad for you. But is that actually true? There is now much more evidence that drinks with sugar in really aren’t good for you. In fact, they could be having a negative impact on your liver. As negative an impact as an alcoholic drink.
Are sugary drinks a problem?
When we think of the things that have a bad effect on the liver, alcohol is the most obvious one. In fact, for anyone who is looking to improve their liver health they will usually start by cutting down on how much alcohol they drink. However, although alcohol can be bad for the liver it’s not actually the biggest problem. Sometimes a sugary drink is much worse. Research has shown people who drink more than one sugar-sweetened drink such as cola or lemonade a day were more likely to have non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) than those who said they didn’t drink any fizzy drinks’. That’s something that tends to surprise a lot of people because you can get liver disease without really drinking that much.
Why are sugary drinks a problem?
The thing about sugary drinks is that they introduce sugar into the body. Once that sugar reaches the liver then it gets converted into fat and that fat is then stored in the liver and other areas. So, every time you have a sugary drink you are introducing more sugar into the body that could then be converted into fat. The more fat there is in your liver the more stress this puts on your liver cells and they might start to struggle to do their job, which is to remove toxins from your body. If you have a build up of fat in the liver then you could get fatty liver disease, as well as cirrhosis (which is liver scarring). It can also lead to other problems for your health, including diabetes and heart disease.
What is fatty liver disease?
Fatty liver disease – which you can get from drinking sugary drinks and poor lifestyle habits – affects a lot more people than you might think. And the problem is getting worse. For example, in the past 20 years there has been a big rise in the number of people having a liver transplant because of fatty liver disease – from 5.3% of all liver transplants to 23%.
So how can you enjoy sugary drinks?
It’s important to drink plenty of water so that will always be the best choice for your liver. However, if you like a sugary drink then replace this with sugar free or one every now and again then your liver will be fine with one a week.
The reality is that drinking sugary drinks really does affect your liver. It can lead to a condition called fatty liver disease and unaltered this could eventually mean you end up needing a transplant at the extreme end. So, it makes sense to reduce how many sugary drinks you have a week now to avoid problems in the future. Download MyLife365.Me today to start monitoring your diet…