LifeCare Chiropractic

The Best Chiropractic Care in Mesa, Arizona

Liver Disease

S-Adenosyl-L-methionine: its role in the treatment of liver disorders – (10-24-02)

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S-Adenosyl-L-methionine: its role in the treatment of liver disorders

When a nutrient seems to affect multiple conditions, we can assume two case scenarios. A. The nutrient is offered by a multi level marketing company and is reported to fix everything from diabetes to cancer to my bald spot. B. The nutrient affects a basic metabolic defect/deficiency that leads to many downstream conditions. SAM-e falls into the second category. SAM-e is a strong methyl donor, and methylation is an incredibly important process that is essential for many biological processes such as homocysteine conversion, protecting DNA from damage and, in this study, protecting the liver by assisting in the production of glutathione (the liver’s heavy hitter when it comes to detoxification). This would put SAM-e on the list along with milk thistle for any patients with liver problems.

AJCN — Abstracts: Lieber 76 (5): 1183S –

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Supplementation with branched-chain amino acids in advanced cirrhosis – (06-23-03)

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Supplementation with branched-chain amino acids in advanced cirrhosis

It seems like I’ve been coming across more and more patients who have or know someone close to them that has a liver that is failing. Given the increased pharmaceutical drug and over the counter pain relievers (Tylenol is now one of the top or possibly even #1 cause of liver failure) this is not surprising. Here we see branched chain amino acids protecting the liver. Add to this regimen milk thistle and N-acetyle cysteine and you’ve got some powerful tools to help retain what functional liver these patients have left.

Gastroenterology Online

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Fatigue and primary biliary cirrhosis – (03-29-04)

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Fatigue and primary biliary cirrhosis

And, just in case you were thinking, “so what if my liver is overburdened?” This study looked at patients with primary biliary cirrhosis–their livers were losing the ability to move things out of the body into the GI tract for elimination–and found that these patient’s fatigue may be related to brain damage from increased manganese levels. Manganese elimination is via the bile, so these patients have a reduced ability to get rid of manganese and it accumulates in the brain. Really makes you appreciate just how interactive the human body systems truly are. As a side note, manganese has been implicated in violent behavior in institutionalized criminals.

Gut — Abstracts: Forton et al. 53 (4): 587 –

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CELIAC DISEASE ASSOCIATED WITH SEVERE LIVER DISEASE RISK – (04-22-02)

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Celiac disease in patients with severe liver disease

Is anyone getting tired of hearing me rant and rave about food sensitivities causing systemic problems? Here’s another article implicating celiac disease (an allergy to a protein called gluten for in certain grains) in another serious condtion that was previously of unknown origin. An elimination diet is warranted in so many different patient presentations–cerebellar ataxia, Alzheimers and other dementias and now liver failure.

Gastroenterology Online –

Read entire article here

PARACETAMOL CAUSES LIVER FAILURE – (05-15-06)

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Paracetamol causes most liver failure in UK and US

That bottle of Tylenol looks so innocent on the shelf, doesn’t it? Ironic that Tylenol was pulled off the market for a mere week or so several yrs back when tampering was found that killed a handful of people, and yet it remains on the shelf when it is known to kill thousands more per year from untampered use. The dichotomy of our health care system is evident everywhere. A huge national uproar was raised when Tylenol was linked to several deaths from tampering, and yet barely a wimpier when it kills, on a daily basis, thousands more.

Read entire article here

ASSOCIATION BETWEEN HYPOTHYROIDISM AND SMALL INTESTINAL BACTERIAL OVERGROWTH – (04-28-08)

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Association between Hypothyroidism and Small Intestinal Bacterial Overgrowth

Talk about the complicated web that makes up our physiology!! In this small study, it was determined that 54% patients with hypothyroidism due to autoimmune thyroiditis had small bowel bacterial overgrowth (SMBO). So what are the connections? First, we know that anti-secretory therapy for ulcers leads to bacterial overgrowth as well.

Then, we know that SMBO has been linked to fatty liver (at first seems like a stretch, but SMBO will lead to leaky gut, allowing larger molecules to get absorbed and head straight to the liver, where the liver now has to deal with the burden). We also know that a large percentage of patients with autoimmune thyroiditis have celiac disease, which further disrupts the integrity of the GI tract.

So, we end up with an upregulation of the immune system as a result of the leaky gut, increasing our likelihood of an autoimmune condition. This can be a perfect example of a feed forward cycle, where an initial disruption in physiology leads to other problems, with these “other problems” feeding back into the cycle and making the initial disruption worse!!

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HAVE YOU HEARD OF NAFLD?

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I’m floored.  Look at the outcomes in this study.  It’s  sickeningly scary. And we’re worried about vaccinating our healthy kids  for the flu.  Ten years ago we never even heard about NAFLD, let alone in  children.  This is really only the tip of the iceberg.  As our  children get heavier and heavier and more insulin resistant we will see  increasing prevalence of NAFLD.  This is scary.  These are just  children.  The parents and the pediatricians should both be strung up and  beaten (the pediatricians for not illustrating the contribution of poor  lifestyle to the condition, the parents if they don’t adopt the changes if the  pediatrician recommends them).  Sorry to be so strong on this one, but I’m  sick of seeing toddlers being fed Coke and chicken fingers…

Read the study here.