Soft Drink Consumption and Increased Risk of Nonalcoholic Fatty Liver Disease
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Liver Disease
A study found a link between soft drink consumption and increased risk of nonalcoholic fatty liver disease, sparking discussion on the implications for public health and dietary recommendations.
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Similar for fruit juice. In nature, people weren't drinking fruit smoothies by the liter year round either.
When I was a kid, my grandmothers had these tiny 1/2 cup glasses for "fruit juice" which was a serving.. and you should "only have one serving a couple times a week." That's just not what people do today.
https://youtu.be/ceFyF9px20Y
The study “defined” soft drinks “as the intake of carbonated drinks such as cola or other flavors,” and excluded “diet/zero calories” soft drinks. (Frustratingly, they don’t mention if unflavored soda counted.)
So unclear from these data, from what I can tell.
Maybe the real takeaway isn’t “avoid alcohol,” but “understand what harms the liver.” We’ve moralized one source of damage while ignoring others.
It has been known for millennia that overfeeding geese with sweet fruits is how you make "foie gras" (which is why in the Romance languages the name for liver comes from figs, replacing the original Indo-European name, which was still used in Classic Latin).
There is no surprise that the same thing happens in humans.
The liver must process all the fructose from sugar and all the alcohol that are ingested. Excessive amounts of either of them will overload the liver capacity of processing them, which also varies between humans.
Liver comes “from Proto-Germanic librn” [1]. Meanwhile, “the Ancient Greek and Latin words for liver (hepar and iecur) always referred to ‘liver’ directly” [2]. (“The original PIE word would have sounded something like yoqur or yequr.”) None of which sounds like the Latin ficus for fig. (EDIT: Oh, that’s the point.)
[1] https://www.etymonline.com/word/liver
[2] https://www.journal-of-hepatology.eu/article/S0168-8278(24)0...
Portuguese: figado
Spanish: higado
Catalan: fetge
French: foie
Italian: fegato
Romanian: ficat
all being derived from Late Latin "ficatum", which comes from "ficus", Latin for "fig".
Strange that the PIE word made it to Greek and Latin but not German.
Source?
The article says “liver enzyme concentrations, such as alanine aminotransferase (ALT), aspartate aminotransferase (AST), and gamma-glutamyl transferase (GGT) have been used as a proxy for NAFLD at the population level. Although not all people with elevated liver enzyme levels have or will progress to NAFLD, these clinical measures are broadly recognized as appropriate to identify and monitor those who are potentially at risk.”