Fatty liver is a lesion caused by excessive accumulation of fat in the liver cells due to various reasons. Normal fat in the liver accounts for 3-4% of the liver weight, if the fat content exceeds 5% of the liver weight, it is considered fatty liver, and in severe cases, the amount of fat can reach 40%-50%, the fatty liver lipids are mainly triglycerides. What is fatty liver? Mild fatty liver often has no conscious symptoms and is not easily noticed, and many people are only discovered by chance during a physical examination. Some patients have digestive symptoms such as loss of appetite, nausea, vomiting and bloating, which are often mistaken for possible indigestion and ignored. Fifty percent of patients with fatty liver have manifestations of vitamin deficiency, such as linguitis, stomatitis, peripheral neuritis, skin keratosis, and subcutaneous petechiae. A small number of patients present with severe pain and tenderness in the right upper abdomen or subxiphoid process, fever, and leukocytosis. The causes of fatty liver are generally the following: 1. Alcohol: Excessive alcohol consumption is the most common cause of fatty liver. Alcohol is mainly decomposed in the liver. Long-term alcohol consumption or excessive alcohol consumption leads to an increased burden on the liver, which makes the liver’s decomposition and metabolism of fat impaired and fat oxidation reduced, causing a large accumulation of fat. The liver’s ability to process alcohol is about 10 ml/hour, and exceeding this rate places a burden on the liver. Nearly 60% of chronic alcoholics develop fatty liver, and 20%-30% of them will eventually develop cirrhosis of the liver and liver cancer. 2, nutritional imbalance: including over-nutrition and malnutrition. Long-term large fish and meat and consumption of fried food, fast food, carbonated drinks, sweets, etc. are the main reasons for excess nutrition. When high-fat diet, excessive fat intake exceeds the limits of liver processing, which increases the burden on the liver and interferes with the metabolism of fat, which accumulates in the liver and forms fatty liver. When high sugar diet, a large amount of sugar enters the liver, exceeding the liver’s ability to synthesize glycogen, and too much sugar is turned to synthesize fatty acids to accumulate in the liver. Obesity is a manifestation of excess nutrition. Data show that about 50% of obese people combined with fatty liver, the prevalence of fatty liver is as high as 61% to 94% in the severely obese. Overnutrition can easily lead to fatty liver, but why does malnutrition also cause fatty liver? Malnutrition fatty liver, also known as nutritional deficiency fatty liver, is commonly caused by malabsorption due to prolonged starvation, improper dieting or intestinal lesions, causing an increase in fat mobilization in the body and a large amount of fatty acids entering the liver from adipose tissue. When malnutrition, especially protein deficiency, leads to the obstruction of lipoprotein synthesis, resulting in liver transport triglyceride disorder, so that fat accumulation in the liver, causing fatty liver. 3, diabetes: According to statistics, about 25% of patients with fatty liver have diabetes, and about 50% of patients with type 2 diabetes have fatty liver. Diabetes type and the incidence of fatty liver has a certain correlation, to adult onset of obesity diabetes and fatty liver occur more closely. In patients with diabetes combined with obesity, triglycerides increase, glucose and fatty acids are not well utilized, and lipoprotein synthesis is impaired, and most glucose and fatty acids are converted to fat in the liver, which eventually causes fat to accumulate in the liver, leading to fatty liver. In contrast, fatty liver occurs less frequently in type 1 diabetic patients with mainly adolescent onset. 4, hyperlipidemia: hyperlipidemia refers to high cholesterol and triglyceride content in the blood or low HDL cholesterol. When there are too many lipids in the blood, exceeding the limit that the liver can handle, it will cause the accumulation of fat in the liver, resulting in fatty liver. 5, too little physical activity: Dr. Brundtland, director general of the World Health Organization, pointed out that: lack of physical activity leads to more than 2 million deaths each year; lack of physical activity is a major cause of chronic non-communicable diseases such as cardiovascular disease, diabetes and obesity. Exercise helps to reduce blood lipids, if too little exercise, body fat into energy and then reduce the excess fat is easy to accumulate liver and the formation of fatty liver. 6, other factors: hepatitis, drug poisoning, chemical poisoning, pregnant women and certain familial metabolic diseases can lead to fatty liver. Inappropriate medication can also cause fatty liver, such as tetracycline, acetylsalicylic acid, glucocorticosteroids, synthetic estrogens, amiodarone, nifedipine, certain antitumor drugs and lipid-lowering drugs.