Gonna have a little rant about one of the common outcomes of obesity right now - fatty liver
Approximately 1/3 of the US who have imaging studies of the abdomen show the result of "fatty liver" which means your liver is full of fat, which means its not functioning correctly
This interference with liver tissue will eventually result in a condition called NASH (non alcoholic steatohepatitis). NASH will then cause scar tissue called fibrosis. Enough fibrosis leads to cirrhosis
Fibrosis can sometimes be reversed but cirrhosis cannot be reversed. The only treatment is liver transplant. Most patients die while waiting for liver transplant. Death by liver failure is one of the most terrible deaths imaginable.
Fatty liver is a disease for the obese and with *very* few exceptions is caused by obesity and sedentarianism. If you want to know what health crisis threatens the US the most, my answer is the coming tsunami of liver failure this nation will see as our obese youth age.
There is NO TREATMENT for fatty liver other than weight loss. That's it - that should tell you something.
No fat acceptance, no body image self love, no "healthy at any size" bullsh*t will prevent or treat fatty liver, NASH or cirrhosis. Fatty liver is 100% treatable if weight loss is achieved and is 100% preventable by normal weight and exercize
Progression from fatty liver to NASH can take years, but progression from NASH to cirrhosis can be hella quick, often about a year. Cirrhosis is often not diagnosed until advanced. We need to take our weight and diet very seriously.
Very, very few in our corrupt government lapdog establishment of corporate medicine is seeing this for what it is. Modern US medicine is nearly 100% crisis management without any focus on prevention. KNOW THIS. You as individuals must focus your own health on prevention
A topic for another day is epidemic STD's which should scare the crap out of everyone but no one hears about. Lets just keep testing and treating and not recognizing its not working bcuz there is NO SUCH THING as safe sex folks
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I'm going to relate a story, one of the most harrowing things I've witnessed as a nurse & it involves a bad case of child abuse/
Late 90's, I was still an OR nurse in a pediatric hospital.i was on night call & was paged in for an "infant Ortho case, I'm not sure just what's involved" was the reason. I got outta bed & came in like usual, checked in the my scrub & the anesthesia tech to get ready
We opened the case, had all the power & instruments ready, we counted then I went to the ER to pick up the patient. Odd the baby was still in the ER & not already in pre-op...
My mother & I go around to about 10 rural cemeteries to tend relatives graves. Over the years I've learned a few things
Cemeteries mow the grass but don't trim around gravestones. There is always a huge build up of dried grass trimmings that needs clearing out around stones
Cemeteries that allow perennial plants should be thoroughly trimmed back on the regular. There are fern peonies at most of my anscestral graves, many were planted by my grandmother in the 70's & 80's
When your spouse has cancer, you realize at some point the trajectory of life is gone
The plans you had, maybe not gone but definitely uncertain
Where you could once make plans, now your future is full of uncertainty. You realize you don't make plans, don't talk about plans. I don't even want to think about what is coming for us
Words cannot express my admiration for my husband. He took the news of his cancer diagnosis like a man. He's referring to an invasive & painful bone cancer that is crushing his vertebrae as a "gift from God"
He earned the callouses on his knees from years of kneeling in prayer but this horrible cancer which may very well claim his life he calls a "gift"
We talked today about St Bernadette who had bone invasive tuberculosis which caused immeasurable suffering, probably similar to what he's experiencing so now he's in good company