Caring for the liver often means taking in pills, including painkillers, health supplements and medications, in moderation. As the body’s organ responsible for processing chemicals, the liver needs adequate rest from the tedious task of breaking down processed food, alcohol, medicines etc. But new studies suggest that common painkillers could prevent hepatitis.  A healthy dose of aspirin or ibuprofen may in fact protect the liver from diseases.

Careful about taking pain killers to keep your liver healthy (Photo Credit: Creative Commons)

With the Holidays coming up and this year coming to an end, stress and anxiety levels at work and at home are bound to rise. For a number of people, using painkillers appropriately is a necessary reprieve!

Today, researchers are telling us that common painkillers and non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs or NSAIDs have more benefits than curing a headache or easing muscle pains. It could also keep liver diseases, and yes, liver cancer at bay.

A study published in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute shows that people who take common painkillers are less likely to develop chronic liver problems. The study involved over 300,000 respondents whom researchers followed up for 10 to 12 years on their use of painkillers. About 73 percent of these respondents used aspirin while 56 percent were exposed to different NSAIDs.

Research findings say that people who take in aspirin, in particular, reduced their chances of developing hepatocellular carcinoma or HCC, the most common form of liver cancer, by forty percent. Those who took ibuprofen are 26 percent less likely to develop liver diseases.

The use of aspirin, the study revealed, created a steady protective effect.  The frequency of use, however, did not significantly affect its efficiency in inhibiting liver diseases.

This discovery could shed new light in developing affordable preventive measures against liver diseases. Still, researchers advise to take all medicines in moderation. Natural ways to ease the holiday stress are still the most liver-friendly options.

From the theatre production of Steel Magnolias, to Oprah, and to the Silver Screen, Sweetie has graced entertainment stages with EXCEPTIONAL drag humor, music and…yes, even cartwheels!. On Monday April, 8th 2013 Sweetie will join ADRLF in “Bring it Or Sing it! The Ultimate Karaoke Showdown”, a benefit to fund free hepatitis screenings and vaccinations.

Sweetie is among New York’s Drag Royalty whose artistry and theatrics guarantee an unforgettable performance. Daniel Booth conceived ‘Sweetie’ after watching a show at the late, great drag mecca, The Pyramid. Daniel and his friend asked for a spot in an upcoming show. “After a fateful night of cartwheels, confetti and onstage pyrotechnics, my career ignited and the rest is history,” Daniel told this ADRLF reporter.

Traveling all over the world, Sweetie has appeared on television shows, major motion pictures, as well as Off-Broadway shows. “I find  great balance by incorporating drag with theater,” he shares. “Yes! ‘Sweetie’ is a THESPIAN!”

This time, Sweetie lends her showmanship to raise funds for the uninsured and under-insured. Daniel’s dedication to help ADRLF provide free diagnosis and vaccinations comes from his own encounter with a deadly liver disease. He lost one of his best friends, Mikal Watson, to liver cancer.

“We were both Midwestern by birth with deep southern roots and had run away to the big city about a decade apart from each other,” Daniel said of Mikal. “He taught me how to survive and thrive in NYC. Mikal was my mentor and a true New York character.”

Mikal had been diagnosed with hepatitis C years before he met Daniel. He lived a very healthy life and displayed no alarming health issues related to his liver condition.

“All of that changed however when the owner of his Harlem apartment building hired exterminators to spray the building for bed bugs,” Daniel recalled.

Mikal lived in an old building with very porous wooden floors. At some point, exterminators started to spray insect poison heavily on the wooden floors unbeknownst to the tenants. Mikal, who enjoyed being barefoot in his home, soon became ill– a casualty of the continuous toxic spraying.

After a few months, Mikal was hospitalized and later diagnosed with Stage 4 liver cancer. “Mikals body was taking in huge amounts of the bug poison thru the soles of is bare feet,” explained Daniel. Mikal passed away within six months.

“His death was a tragedy. I miss him every single day,” Daniel said.

Supporting early and free diagnosis of hepatitis and liver cancer is at the heart of Daniel’s personal and professional goals. “For whatever small platform I have to reach people, I feel like its my responsibility to do my part,” he said. “Doing service in my community is really important. It does the soul good.”

Don’t miss Sweetie at ADRLF’s Karaoke Night, with host, Carson Kressley at the Ryan Center on 10th Ave and 45th Street, NY. Doors open at 7:00pm. Get your tickets now!

Your fingernals says a lot about your liver (Photo Credit: Creative Commons)

It’s interesting how our body shows physical signs that tell us of the condition of our internal systems and organs, including our liver. Many of us are not aware of these signs – some may even argue the reliability of these external manifestations. Still, as we keep an open mind for the sake of health and well-being, many health experts invite us to take a closer look at our fingernails and tongue, as they can tell us important things about our liver.

Fingernails are made of protein layers that grown underneath the base of the nail, just behind the cuticle. They are not made of living tissue, but rather of old cells that have accumulated and hardened. It takes some time for fingernails to develop, and during this period, any change in a person’s health would also manifest in the nail. This can come as changes in the shape, color and texture of the nail.

When any of these changes are observed, it usually indicates that there’s a medical problem that should be checked out.

It is important, however, to make sure that any change in the appearance of fingernails is not caused by other factors, such as fungus or forcible impact on the nail and fingers.

The tongue, on the other hand, is believed to be an indicator of your digestive health. When your tongue is smooth and pink, it shows that your digestive tract as well as your liver are in good shape. However, if you see that your tongue is coated, it’s very much a sign of several digestive and liver problems. Spotty tongues are often linked with poor digestion, and the presence of bad bacteria in the stomach. Since your liver helps digestion by generating bile, having a coated tongue could also mean that your liver is not producing enough fluid for your body to properly digest food, especially fat.

But then again, people who smoke, and those who are sick and dehydrated often get spotty, coated tongues. So be careful in making conclusions when you see that your tongue is not as smooth and pink as it should be.

It won’t take up much of your time to check on your fingernails and your tongue, and figure out what they could be saying about your body. You can think of it as your body’s own way of helping you take care of it!

The liver is central in processing anything and everything we take in – from our favorite breakfast cereal, vitamins and medications, to our late night snack of chocolate and wine. For many people, caring for the liver may not come easily with all the medications they must take. But just how dangerous are drugs to the liver? Using a new database, finding out the specific effects of a pharmaceutical drug to the liver is now just a few mouse clicks away.

This month of October, the National Institute of Health (NHI) proudly introduced LiverTox, a free pharmaceutical database that provides accurate and updated information on a wide range of drugs including prescription and non-prescription medicines, herbal products and dietary supplements. It provides a thorough report on a particular drug, including its chemical structure, manufacturer information, and related case studies.

With LiverTox, it is now convenient to access information on the relative effects of certain medications on the liver. It gives an overview of drug-induced liver injury, illustrating the different clinical patterns of liver damage, and the process of liver biopsy.

LiverTox is indeed a valuable resource for healthcare professionals, researchers and patients. To date, the database has data on over 700 pharmaceutical products, and around 300 more are set to include in the next years.

LiverTox is the product of innovative incorporation of medical research and informatics to give people across the world access to evidence-based data. Every section of the database has been verified by the Food and Drug Association (FDA), pharmaceutical scientists and medical experts.

Another feature of this comprehensive database is a case registry, which contains information that will improve clinical analysis of the different signs and patterns of liver diseases. Finally, it encourages user interaction, allowing users to submit cases of drug-induced liver damage that NIH automatically sends to the FDA and MedWatch for futher analysis. So for all you liver and drug-related questions — LiverTox has your answers!

Natural killer cells for cancer treatment

Included among the innovative ways being developed to diagnose and treat diseases, researchers are advancing a more natural way of addressing liver cancer using natural killer cells (NKS). As curious as they sound, we decided to explore and explain NKS.

NKS are naturally-occurring cells that live in our body,  and  have been subject of numerous studies for cancer treatment, especially cancer of the blood. Today, there is a growing body of evidence supporting the use of  these killer cells to improve the treatment for hepatocellular cancer (HCC), the most common form of liver cancer.

In previous immunotherapy studies, natural killer cells have been used to develop treatments for global epidemics like HCC.  In liver cancer treatment, these cells are extracted from a healthy liver and enhanced in the laboratory. These cells react with different levels of potency when combined with various chemicals and antibodies. When injected into the bloodstream, these cells aggressively target cancer cells.

In a new study at the University of Southampton, researchers are creating different combinations of chemical stimuli that would give the best anti-cancer effects when combined with natural killer cells.

The continuous rise of hepatocellular cancer in the United States, as well as the difficulty of getting a liver transplant have urged researchers to explore the full capacity of using natural killer cells in liver cancer treatment. HCC accounts for about 90 percent of liver cancer cases in the country. It is primarily due to repeated scaring in the liver over a long period of liver damage.

Liver transplant does not guarantee the survival of patients. In the US alone, approximately 20 percent of liver transplant patients die from the recurrence of cancer in the newly transplanted liver. Experts believe that even after liver transplant, cancer cells still linger in the blood stream. Natural killer cells would hinder this relapse by killing as many tumor cells as possible.

Further studies on NK cell immunotherapy are still underway but researchers express their high hopes on the benefits that this new treatment could offer to liver cancer patients.

Paper-based test is the latest method to diagnose liver diseases

Medical technology has brought paper – yes, paper – to a new level by transforming it into an affordable and reliable device able to diagnose liver disease.

The Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston and Diagnostics for All, a non-profit organization based in Cambridge, Mass. take medical innovation very seriously. Using a paper-based device about the size of a postage stamp, they have developed a test that could determine signs of liver damage.

A droplet of blood from a finger prick is placed on the paper device. The paper has filters and reagents that react to molecular indicators and enzymes in the blood sample. After fifteen minutes, the paper changes color depending on the level of liver enzymes. The resulting color indicates the condition of the liver, as well as the level of damage. This would enable doctors to decide on the appropriate preventive measures or treatment options.

The paper-based test shows promise to reduce health care cost in the United States.

Researchers at Beth Israel are also hopeful that this inexpensive technology will be distributed for wide use in developing and underdeveloped countries around the world. They believe that it could make effective diagnosis significantly more accessible in places where blood tests are expensive and time-consuming.

The simplicity of the paper-based test has raised questions on its accuracy. To this, Beth Israel and Diagnostics for All attest that their primary clinical tests exhibited over 90 percent certainty. The next step in the development of the test is a wide field study with 600 people in Vietnam.

Similar paper-based tests have been developed for HIV and tuberculosis. Fingers crossed, the full development of this paper-based test could exponentially decrease medical costs and provide more communities with accurate diagnosis.

Protein detection could improve liver transplant (Photo Credit: Creative Commons)

A liver transplant is a fragile medical procedure that could determine someone’s chance of surviving advanced liver disease. The number of people in need of liver transplants is increasing faster than the number of available livers. The success of each transplant surgery is vital for the transplant patient. Success of each transplant is also a critical issue for the person who may have been passed over for a liver—only to possibly learn a horrible reality that success hadn’t been realized for someone who got the liver they had desperately hoped for.

Thus, researchers have sought to find ways to predict the chance of patients developing liver damage after a liver transplant.

At the University of Washington, researchers cheered at the discovery of a promising method that tells of the onset of liver damage among patients who undergo liver transplant. Through a protein marker, physicians may be able to foretell how a transplanted liver will fair after the transplant operation.

Researchers found out that there’s a certain gene expression which shows among patients who are at risk of developing fibrosis in their newly transplanted liver. The protein signature appears following the surgery but well before any clinical signs of liver damage.

This discovery is significant as proper monitoring and early detection of liver damage are crucial to ensure a patient’s recovery after a liver transplant. With these protein markers, physicians could develop a highly personalized treatment for liver transplant patients.Most cases of liver transplants are done to prevent liver failure due to chronic hepatitis C. However, hepatitis C virus could survive in a person’s bloodstream even after liver transplant. This makes the newly transplanted liver relatively susceptible to liver damage.

In several cases, the transplanted organ became easily infected, while in few instances, the damage to the new liver progressed slowly over years. Another condition that physicians work to prevent is the build-up of fibrous tissues in the new liver that could occur in the first or second year after the transplant procedure.

At present, patients who have undergone liver transplant must regularly go undergo invasive biopsies to continually monitor the condition of their new liver. Patients may also need to take drugs to prevent the persisting hepatitis C virus from damaging the transplanted organ. However, these medications are aggressive, with harsh side effects such as depression, anemia and chronic fatigue. Fingers crossed, the successful use of protein markers could spare liver transplant patients from further discomfort, and help them to start anew.

Fructose may be more harmful to your liver than what you thought

We’ve all heard of the dangers of high-fructose corn syrup. Many food companies have chosen to replace high-fructose corn syrup with different sugar alternatives to make sure that our cereals, yogurt and bread are still tasty without the stigma and dangers of high-fructose corn syrup.

Fructose, however, is found in many food sources. It is found in foods that may not seem threatening at all. The simplest definition of fructose is ‘fruit sugar’; fructose is the kind of sugar found in fruits and vegetables. But unlike any other sugar, fructose is metabolized only by the liver. Thus, researchers are calling for a careful look into the role of this particular sweetness in the continuous prevalence of obesity, diabetes and liver diseases.

Fructose is one of the most abundant sugars found in our traditional American diet. It is very sweet and considerably cheaper than many other sugar alternatives in the market. Food companies favor its use because it gives a dash of sweetness at lower calories and at a lower production cost. Non- diet soft drinks, for example, are made with sweeteners that are mostly made of fructose.

However, since fructose is only broken down by the liver there are some considerations to explore.  A high intake of fructose is setting off alarms on how today’s processed food and beverages may contribute to liver diseases and related illnesses, particularly diabetes and obesity.

Researchers are taking a closer look at how fructose leads to the excessive production of internal fat and fatty liver disease. To date, they have linked fructose to diabetes and obesity. They found out that large intakes of fructose elevate the uric acid levels, resulting in insulin resistance. This could be fatal to people living with diabetes. Fructose also reduces the body’s response to leptin, which is an important hormone that tells the body to stop eating.

The breaking down of fructose in the liver also causes the buildup of fat around internal organs, the production of bad cholesterol and increased blood pressure. We are here to remind you—and want to be clear: don’t be fooled by this simple, naturally occurring sugar. It is important to keep ALL sugars to a minimum in your daily diet.  For more information refer to http://www.nal.usda.gov/fnic/foodcomp/Data/Other/herr48.pdf) and make sure that you and your family are getting just enough fructose that your liver can handle.