Fatty liver physical examination indicators

The organs in our body have certain fat content requirements. Too much or too little is not good for health. For example, fatty liver is a disease in which the fat content in the liver organ is too high, thus affecting the normal metabolism of the liver. Generally, obese friends will have mild fatty liver, but thin friends should not ignore it either. It is also necessary to conduct fatty liver physical examinations in time.

Fatty liver refers to a disease in which excessive fat accumulates in liver cells due to various reasons. It is a common liver pathological change rather than an independent disease. Fatty liver disease is seriously threatening the health of the Chinese people and has become the second largest liver disease after viral hepatitis. The incidence rate is increasing and the age of onset is getting younger and younger. Normal human liver tissue contains a small amount of fat, such as triglycerides, phospholipids, glycolipids and cholesterol, which weigh about 3% to 5% of the liver weight. If too much fat accumulates in the liver, exceeding 5% of the liver weight or more than 50% of the liver cells have fatty degeneration in histology, it is called fatty liver. The clinical manifestations are asymptomatic in mild cases and severe in severe cases. Generally speaking, fatty liver is a reversible disease, and early diagnosis and timely treatment can often restore to normal.

Fatty liver is generally divided into two categories: alcoholic fatty liver and non-alcoholic fatty liver. Depending on the extent of fatty degeneration in the liver, it can be divided into mild, moderate and severe types. Usually, when the fat content exceeds 5% to 10% of the liver weight, it is considered mild fatty liver, when it exceeds 10% to 25%, it is moderate fatty liver, and when it exceeds 25%, it is severe fatty liver.

The clinical manifestations of fatty liver are diverse. Mild fatty liver often has no clinical symptoms and is often discovered accidentally during physical examinations. Fatigue is the most common symptom in patients with fatty liver, but it has no correlation with the severity of histological damage. Moderate to severe fatty liver has symptoms similar to those of chronic hepatitis, including loss of appetite, fatigue, nausea, vomiting, dull pain in the liver area or right upper abdomen, etc.

When there is too much fat deposited in the liver, the liver capsule may expand and the liver ligaments may be stretched, causing severe pain or tenderness in the right upper abdomen, fever, and increased white blood cell count, which may be misdiagnosed as acute abdomen and require laparotomy. In addition, patients with fatty liver often have changes in peripheral neuritis such as glossitis, angular cheilitis, skin ecchymosis, numbness of the limbs, and abnormal sensation in the limbs. A small number of patients may also experience gastrointestinal bleeding, gingival bleeding, epistaxis, etc. Patients with severe fatty liver may have ascites, lower limb edema, electrolyte imbalance such as hyponatremia and hypokalemia, etc. The manifestations of fatty liver are diverse. When diagnosis is difficult, a liver biopsy can be performed to confirm the diagnosis.