Six dietary considerations for patients with liver cirrhosis

  Cirrhosis, a common chronic liver disease, requires long-term conditioning and health care for patients. Once improper maintenance leads to cirrhosis to ascites, the condition is aggravated. Therefore, in addition to cooperate with treatment, patients with cirrhosis should pay attention to daily health care, reasonable diet is the most important.  1, reasonable consumption of protein. The liver is the synthesis site of protein, 11 to 14 grams of albumin is synthesized by the liver every day. When cirrhosis of the liver, the liver can not synthesize protein well. It is then necessary to arrange the protein intake reasonably to prevent the occurrence of hepatic encephalopathy. Patients can eat a diet based on casein, mixing cheese into the right amount of chicken, fish, lean meat and eggs for consumption.  2. Pay attention to oral hygiene before and after each meal, and rinse the mouth with saline. When eating, let the patient chew and swallow slowly. Recipes are diversified. Nutritional principles are high calorie, high protein, high vitamin and low fat. Avoid foods with irritation and plant fiber and hard food Medical Education|Net collects and organizes them to avoid hemorrhage due to rupture of esophageal varices. Prohibit smoking, abstain from drinking alcoholic beverages, so as not to aggravate the burden on the liver and contribute to the deterioration of the disease medical. Advanced patients with significantly diminished liver function should be given a high protein diet. Those with ascites should be given a low-salt or salt-free diet according to their condition. In severe cases of ascites, daily water intake should also be limited and placed in a semi-recumbent position to allow the diaphragm to descend and increase lung volume for respiration. When there is high blood ammonia, then high protein diet is contraindicated.  3, supplement vitamin C. Vitamin C is directly involved in liver metabolism and promotes liver glycogen formation. Increase the concentration of vitamin C in the body can protect liver cells and promote liver cell regeneration. The concentration of vitamin C in ascites is equal to that in blood, so a large amount of vitamin C should be supplemented when there is ascites. 4, the diet should be light, soft, easy to digest, non-stimulating, a small number of meals. Patients with cirrhosis often lose their appetite, so they should be given food that is easy to digest and absorb, with a small number of meals, soft and non-stimulating food, and not hard and rough food, such as fried food and hard fruit food. When combined with esophageal varices, we should pay more attention to forbid eating fried food and dried fruit food, because this kind of food is easy to scratch the esophageal vein and cause upper gastrointestinal bleeding, which is life-threatening.  5, supply the right amount of fat. Some patients suffering from cirrhosis are afraid to eat fat, in fact, fat should not be restricted too strictly. Because of the pancreatic insufficiency in cirrhosis, bile salt secretion is reduced, the lymphatic ducts or hepatic portal congestion and other reasons nearly half of the patients with cirrhosis have steatorrhea and malabsorption of fat. When the above symptoms appear, the amount of fat should be controlled. However, if the patient does not have the above symptoms when and can adapt to the fat in food, fat is not easily restricted too tightly in order to increase calories. In case of biliary cirrhosis adopt low-fat and low-cholesterol diet.  6. Restrict water and sodium in the diet. When there is edema or mild ascites patients should be given a low-salt diet, the daily intake of salt should not exceed 3 grams; in the case of severe edema it is appropriate to use a salt-free diet, and sodium should be limited to about 500 mg. For example, do not use alkali when steaming steamed buns, but use fresh yeast to make the noodles instead, or eat salt-free bread. Hanging noodles contain more sodium and should not be eaten. Secondly, a variety of pickles and sauces sodium content is also very much, patients with cirrhosis should be absolutely limited. Meanwhile, MSG in condiments is dominated by monosodium glutamate, which will increase the burden on the liver’s metabolism of water and sodium. When making various dishes, do not put salt or soy sauce first, and put salt or soy sauce last when the dish is fried, or put vinegar, soy sauce and salt to eat after it is fried. This has both taste and limits the intake of sodium. Other foods with high sodium content, such as seafood, ham, puffed eggs and meat pine, should also be strictly controlled. Daily water intake should be limited to 1000 ml – 1500 ml.