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The following is a transcript of a House Calls from The Role of the Community Pharmacy, YOUR HEALTH Radio October 6, 2018

House Calls Question: My mother has suffered from fatty liver disease and cirrhosis for 10 years. She will probably pass away in the next few years because of the liver problems. Am I at risk of these same problems and if so, what can I do to prevent it from ever happening to me?

Dr. Adam Goldberg: You know, fatty liver disease, such a difficult disease, it’s really one of the top causes of cirrhosis or really end stage, ultimately, liver disease in the United States and worldwide. And you know, we are beginning to know more than we ever have known about it and it is strongly associated with obesity. Its associated with inflammation in the liver and just as obesity has lots of genetic causes, so that if you are obese and your parents are obese, it’s a good chance that your children will be obese and we have to intervene and really work at kind of changing some of those underlying genetic tendencies. Fatty liver disease has very similar, but again a lot of it may well be due to obesity, so how we can intervene to prevent the obesity or to lose weight would really be one of the most important things. I think talking with your doctor, getting tested to see, do you have any inflammation in your liver that could cause these kinds of problems, that would be something that would be really important to try to pick up on at the earliest as possible and do your best to prevent it. Medications that could cause liver disease, you’d probably be more likely to want to avoid those.

• Fatty Liver Disease
• Cirrhosis
• Healthy Weight Loss Starts With a Plan You Can Stick To
• Exercise and Activity for Weight Loss

Provided by librarians at the University of North Carolina Health Sciences Library.