For Hepatitis C Treatment, Low-Calorie Diet May Be Your First Line of Treatment

Even with the latest advances, pharmaceutical treatment for hepatitis C is a hit or miss proposition that often results in side effects many people find as bad as the disease. To keep from needing interferon treatment, however, low-calorie diet may help.

In hepatitis C, liver cells suffer an onslaught of toxic free radicals. Healthy cells can handle the free radicals of oxygen that escape the normal biochemical pathways for turning glucose into energy, but liver cells infected with hepatitis C cannot.

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To protect themselves from damage, liver cells "turn off" their receptors for insulin. Called insulin resistance, this phenomenon keeps sugar out of the cell. If the cell does not receive sugar, it does not burn sugar, and there are fewer free radicals to be neutralized. The liver cell, however, continues to respond to insulin as a transporter of fat.

This means a large amount of glucose stays in the bloodstream. The pancreas tries to get blood sugar levels back to normal by sending out even more insulin. Liver cells become even more resistant to insulin, but they are flooded with even more fat.

That's how hepatitis C can lead to fatty liver and later cirrhosis of the liver. But the process is not inevitable.

Australian researchers tested 19 people with chronic hepatitis C in a 90-day test of diet and exercise. Some participants had previously been treated with interferon and some had not, but all had some degree of fibrosis (leading to cirrhosis), steatosis (significant risk of developing diabetes), and inflammation (indicating tissue death). All 23 participants were significantly overweight and all had measurable insulin resistance.

The Australian test participants modified their diet by a simple rule: eat less. Average food consumption in the group was lowered from 2,740 to 1,620 calories per day (50 percent carbohydrate, 20 percent protein, and 30 percent fat), enough for most to lose 1 pound a week. Participants gradually increased exercise to 30 minutes a day. Participants engaged in aerobic exercise, such as a brisk walk, but did not do strength training.

The diet and exercise changes in this program were hardly rigorous, but the results were impressive. Serum ALT, a measure of liver tissue destruction, steadily decreased as the participants lost weight. Fatty liver, fibrosis, and inflammation improved in almost all the participants. Most important, in four of the participants, smooth muscle antibodies, the measure of damage to the liver by the immune system itself, completely disappeared.

The Australian research team believes that any man with a waist measure of more than 37 inches (94 centimeters) and any woman with a waist measurement of more than 32 inches (80 centimeters) can benefit from gentle changes in diet and exercise to lose weight. Massive weight loss is not necessary. Losing as little as 2.5 percent of one's total body weight is frequently enough to stop the progression of the disease. And that's not hard to do with natural weight loss.

For Hepatitis C Treatment, Low-Calorie Diet May Be Your First Line of Treatment

STEATOSIS