Patient's question:
Brother Liu, a good friend of my cousin, has been taking medication for fatty liver disease. However, his indicators seem to be getting higher recently. A doctor at one hospital recommended that Liu use antiviral treatment, but another hospital suggested that antiviral treatment for fatty liver is no longer effective.Doctor's answer:
First, fatty liver is not caused by the transmission of hepatitis virus; patients with simple fatty liver do not have hepatitis virus in their bodies, so there is no need to mention antiviral treatment. Fatty liver is merely a condition of hepatic fatosis caused by excessive fat content in the liver and the large accumulation of fat cells within hepatocytes. It is a metabolic liver dysfunction resulting from the accumulation of triglycerides, and therefore it is reversible. Once the excessive fat accumulated in the liver is completely eliminated, liver function can mostly return to normal without leaving any sequelae. The reason why people often confuse fatty liver with hepatitis is because they share some similarities in clinical manifestations. Both conditions to varying degrees impair the normal metabolic function of the liver, leading to further liver dysfunction and consequently causing a series of gastrointestinal discomfort symptoms.