Obviously alcohol exerts an extremely detrimental effect on the liver and associated organs, sclerosis of the liver through the process of scarring, when scar tissue forms it restricts the liver's ability to make proteins, filter the blood, fight infections, digest food and store energy. Sclerosis can be fatal if it is not treated correctly and early. Hepatitis also can damage the liver leaving it scarred and not functioning correctly.
But what about diet?
Obesity can lead to fatty liver which can cause gallstones in the gall bladder, women are more likely to get gallstones then men, look at this research from Okinawa ( the elders are the worlds longest lived people - proven by 25 years of research).
AMERICAN JOURNAL OF EPIDEMIOLOGY
Oxford Journals Medicine American Journal of EpidemiologyVolume 128, Number 3Pp. 598-605
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Articles by NOMURA, H.
Articles by GOTO, M.
American Journal of Epidemiology Vol. 128, No. 3: 598-605
Copyright © 1988 by The Johns Hopkins University School of Hygiene and Public Health
research-article
PREVALENCE OF GALLSTONE DISEASE IN A GENERAL POPULATION OF OKINAWA, JAPAN
HIDEYUKI NOMURA1,, SEIZABURO KASHIWAGI1, JUN HAYASHI1, WATARU KAJIYAMA1, HIDEYUKI IKEMATSU1, AKINORI NOGUCHI1, SHUNICHI TANI2 and MASASHI GOTO2
1First Department of Internal Medicine, Faculty of Medicine, Kyushu University 71 Higashi-ku, Fukuoka 812, Japan
2Shionogi Kaiseki Center, Shionogi Co., Ltd. Suita City, Osaka, Japan
Reprint requests to Dr. Hideyuki Nomura
A total of 2,584 healthy residents in the Yaeyama District of Okinawa, Japan, were investigated in 1984 to determine the prevalence of gallstone disease and its associated factors. Diagnosis of gallstone disease was assessed by real-time ultrasonography. For participants over 20 years of age, obesity index and serum levels of total cholesterol and triglycerides were measured. Overall prevalence of gallstone disease was 3.2%. Prevalence increased with age from 0% under 19 years of age to 11.4% over 70 years of age and was higher in females (4.0%) than in males (2.5%). The results of the logistic regression analysis indicated that age and fatty liver were significant predictors of gallstone disease. The results of the automatic interaction detector analysis indicated that age and fatty liver were strong factors associated with gallstone disease and that prevalence was highest in females over age 50 with fatty liver.
cholelithiasis; cholesterol; fatty liver; obesity; triglycerides; ultrasonic diagnosis
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