Fatty liver could be responsible for your arthritis
By Margaret Jasinska
Many people with a fatty liver have arthritis or stiff joints. You may not realise the two conditions are linked. Enzymes and inflammatory chemicals produced by a fatty liver, as well as the appetite hormone leptin can all promote the destruction of cartilage and subsequent arthritis. Improving the health of your liver may reduce overall pain, improve mobility and help you avoid joint replacements as you age.
In a normal, healthy liver, matrix metalloproteinases (MMPs) are responsible for regenerating and repairing liver cells that may have become injured while detoxing your body and carrying out their regular functions. A fatty or inflamed liver attempts to regenerate itself more rapidly, thus production of MMPs increases. Your liver is trying to help you out, but having too many MMPs in your body isn’t good. MMPs don’t just stay in your liver. They enter systemic circulation and every part of your body they reach can suffer with consequences. When produced in excess, MMPs lead to tissue breakdown and degeneration. MMPs are responsible for the turnover and breakdown of matrix proteins, including collagen, gelatin, elastin and fibronectin. If your connective tissue breaks down too quickly, you can suffer with pain and stiffness.
If you’ve ever had a blood test for inflammation, your doctor probably checked levels of a substance called C-reactive protein. Your level determines how much inflammation is present in your body. C-reactive protein is mostly produced inside the liver. If your liver is fatty, production increases. Inflammation can spread like wildfire in your body, promoting pain, stiffness and reduced mobility.
Leptin is a hormone that your fat cells make. It travels to your brain and tells it you’ve had enough to eat, there is enough fat on your body and you don’t need to eat anymore. If your leptin is working well, you find it easy to maintain your weight. You eat enough to satisfy your appetite and you’re not interested in over-eating. Unfortunately, leptin resistance is extremely common. If your fat cells have been pumping out high levels of leptin for some time, your brain stops responding to it. That can give you feelings of intense hunger and cravings that are never satisfied.
Leptin is more than just a hormone that regulates weight, appetite and metabolism. It is also a hormone involved in inflammation and autoimmunity. It increases secretion of inflammatory chemicals including cytokines like TNF-α, IL-6 and IL-12. Leptin raises nitric oxide in joint cartilage. Normally nitric oxide is a good thing, but inside joints it can cause death of cartilage cells. Leptin increases the recruitment of immune cells to inflamed joints, where they can cause autoimmune attack. If you have a fatty liver there is almost an 100% chance your body produces too much leptin.
How to reverse fatty liver and save your joints
Insulin resistance is the most common cause of fatty liver. People with insulin resistance don’t process carbohydrate-rich foods well in their body. This leads to fat accumulation, particularly around the torso and inside the liver, and in time possibly elevated blood sugar and a diagnosis of type 2 diabetes. A low carbohydrate diet helps to reverse those conditions because it reduces blood sugar spikes as well as insulin. See the books Fatty Liver: You Can Reverse It and Diabetes Type 2: You Can Reverse It Naturally for help.
Support your body’s production of collagen by consuming adequate protein and gelatin-rich foods. Examples include beef cheeks, bone broth, chicken soup made using an entire chicken, osso bucco, lamb shank or oxtail stew. Check out our bone broth recipe for beginners.
Having an unhealthy circadian rhythm can promote both leptin and insulin resistance, making weight loss extremely difficult. Ideally you would do most of your eating before the sun has set. Eating late at night impairs glucose tolerance, and so does exposure to bright blue light at night. Spending time outdoors during the day and avoiding too much light in your house at night improves insulin and leptin function, making it easier to achieve a healthy weight.
Make sure you are getting enough of the nutrients you need in order to manufacture collagen. Eating collagen rich foods like the ones mentioned above is great, but you’ll digest them and break them down into their component amino acids. In order to create collagen and elastin in your body, you need vitamin C, zinc, biotin and sufficient sulfur. These nutrients are found in Collagen Food powder.
Natural Pain Manager capsules contain green lipped mussel as well as turmeric. They can help to relieve mild joint pain.
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