Wine, Women and Song

June 22, 2007 12:30 PM

How do I take care of my liver?

I'm a healthy late 20's male. I like to go out and drink about 2 (sometimes 3) nights a week. When I am out (for several hours, say between 9 and 1:45), I'll drink
~ 6-8 mixed drinks or ~5-6 pints of beer

I drink about the same at parties. At dinner parties I drink much less (3-4 glasses of wine/beer but with food). I always drink water when I get home and I'm rarely hung over (2-4 times a year). At home I occasionally sip scotch but never more than one drink at a time.
I'd like to enjoy drinking when I'm 50 so obviously I want to take good care of my liver. Other than drinking less, what can I do to achieve that?

As much as possible, I take Vitamin B12 before (to metabolize alcohol faster) and sometimes after (I rarely remember though) drinking. Any other suggestions?

PS: I NEVER drive to bars so don't worry about me drinking and driving. I've been meaning to ask this but I just got inspired by this question

posted by special-k to Health & Fitness (23 answers total)

Drink coffee in the morning.
posted by yeti at 12:44 PM on June 22, 2007

Milk thistle. Type this and "liver support" into google for many more suggestions.
posted by Blue Buddha at 12:45 PM on June 22, 2007

Alcohol and Liver Disease:

You are very unlikely to develop liver problems caused by alcohol if you drink within the recommended safe limits. That is:

* Men - no more than 21 units per week (and no more than 4 units in any one day).
* Women - no more than 14 units per week (and no more than 3 units in any one day).

One unit of alcohol is about equal to:
o Half a pint of ordinary strength beer, lager, or cider (3–4% alcohol by volume), or
o A small pub measure (25 ml) of spirits (40% alcohol by volume), or
o A standard pub measure (50 ml) of fortified wine such as sherry or port (20% alcohol by volume).
* There are one and a half units of alcohol in:
o A small glass (125 ml) of ordinary strength wine (12% alcohol by volume), or
o A standard pub measure (35 ml) of spirits (40% alcohol by volume).

posted by smackfu at 12:54 PM on June 22, 2007

1. Consistently having 10 - 24+ drinks/week is sort of borderline territory for a man if you buy the results of this research. Or is it way too much? Isn't science in the popular press fun?

2. Don't take acetaminophen

3. Drink coffee.

4. Avoid other risk factors for liver problems. One of the most important may be to maintain a healthy weight and manage your blood glucose levels through diet and exercise. This is good health advice generally. Avoid other drugs, legal and illegal, to the extent that is feasible and consistent with health. Don't get hepatitis. If you can avoid the necessity of taking Lipitor, Plavix, etc. by that superior lifestyle of healthful eating and regular exercise I keep hearing about, you'll have a lot more miles to put on your liver with the booze.
posted by nanojath at 12:56 PM on June 22, 2007

Avocado is supposed to be good for the liver. Have some guacamole!
posted by pluckysparrow at 12:56 PM on June 22, 2007

The liver is the only major organ in our guts that is capable of regenerating itself.

That's why it's one of only two major organs which can be transplanted from live donors (without killing the donor). Since everyone has two kidneys and a single healthy kidney is all you need, kidneys are the other.

The reason they can do that with the liver is that they take half of the donor's liver. Over a period of maybe a year, the remaining half will grow back to full size. And the half which is transplanted will grow into a full liver.

If your liver is abused, and begins to suffer damage, this is one of the few cases where leaving it alone and living a more healthy lifestyle will actually result in the damage being made good. The liver will repair itself.

It's true that excessive alcohol use causes liver damage, but unexcessive alcohol use does not. Or rather, it probably causes minute damage, but the liver can and does constantly regenerate itself and heal that damage.

So this is one of the few cases where you don't need to worry as much.
posted by Steven C. Den Beste at 1:03 PM on June 22, 2007

The remains of a transplanted liver only regenerates to about 80% of it's original mass/volume, but you don't need your entire liver anyway.
posted by porpoise at 2:01 PM on June 22, 2007

You are very unlikely to develop liver problems caused by alcohol if you drink within the recommended safe limits. That is:

* Men - no more than 21 units per week (and no more than 4 units in any one day).

I'm a healthy late 20's male. I ... go out and drink about 2 (sometimes 3) nights a week. ... I'll drink ~ 6-8 mixed drinks

Let's do the math.

3 X 8 = 24

So, you're over the safe limits in both total daily intake (no more than 4 in one day) and in total weekly intake.

Moreover, my experience is that people generally UNDERestimate their drinking, so when you're saying "2, sometimes 3" and "~6-8," we'll add a few on to be on the safe side.

Keep this up for several years, and you may have a problem.

May I recommend some club soda and lime? ;-)
posted by Cool Papa Bell at 2:17 PM on June 22, 2007

Oh, and make sure you're a) already as healthy as you think you are and b) staying clear of other liver diseases that may further compromise the already taxed situation, such as hepatitis and cholesterol-laden foods that may lead to treatment with statins.
posted by Cool Papa Bell at 2:19 PM on June 22, 2007

You're taking care of your liver just fine - I assume you mean "taking care of" in the colloquial sense, the same way the mafia 'takes care' of its snitches.

All the above answers fail to note that the degree to which you are taxing your liver makes it ludicrous to imagine that you could somehow offset that damage with patent medicine or extra-healthy living between binges or vitamins.

Whatever your reasons for abusing alcohol (and the level of consumption you note is abuse, i.e. using much more than the appropriate or safe amount), you are gambling with cirrhosis.

So the answer to your original question is, "You can't". You just won't know it for awhile.

Plenty of jaundiced, encephalopathic cirrhotics were never "hard drinkers", just long-standing over-consumers.
posted by docpops at 2:39 PM on June 22, 2007

Plenty of jaundiced, encephalopathic cirrhotics were never "hard drinkers", just long-standing over-consumers.

OTOH, only 15% or so of actual alcoholics get cirrhosis.
posted by smackfu at 2:43 PM on June 22, 2007

smackfu, where do you get that figure and how are you defining 'alcoholic'?
posted by davy at 3:14 PM on June 22, 2007

Cool Papa Bell: Thanks. When I say 2-3 I mean that some weeks I go out 3 nights and in other weeks only two (because no one else wants to go out; not that I don't remember). As an experiment, I have logged every drink I've had since January 1 (in a dedicated moleskine. I also pay with the same card and save drink receipts to log it in the next day).

I should do club soda and lime more often. :)
posted by special-k at 3:14 PM on June 22, 2007

Eat beets and artichokes- great for liver support! Avoid excessive sugar, alcohol and caffeine (yes, easier said than done...!)

Be careful of your prescription drug use as well.
posted by solongxenon at 3:37 PM on June 22, 2007

Get a Hep A vaccination, and keep your liver away from Hep B and C (ie, protected sex, be careful about your choice of tattooist and needless to say, don't go sharing syringes).
posted by kisch mokusch at 4:01 PM on June 22, 2007

Ever thought about using marijuana as an alcohol substitute for one or two of the nights out? Could be a reasonable harm-reduction strategy.
posted by TorontoSandy at 4:38 PM on June 22, 2007

enemas
posted by matteo at 5:03 PM on June 22, 2007

Don't take acetaminophen (Tylenol) the day after drinking either. Tylenol and alcohol are metabolized out of your body using the same liver enzymes. After these enzymes are depleted by a night of drinking, your liver is especially vulnerable. It's easy to take too much acetaminophen, since it's in a lot of over-the-counter combo products. And you don't have to go far over the 4000 mg/day limit before heading into liver damage territory.

Personally, if I were you, I just wouldn't take acetaminophen at all. Acetaminophen overdose is the number one cause of acute liver failure in the US. "Acute" means it happens fast. (The #1 cause of chronic liver disease is still alcohol.)
posted by selfmedicating at 6:13 PM on June 22, 2007

smackfu, where do you get that figure and how are you defining 'alcoholic'?

Not to speak for smackfu, but this and other sites would appear to bear him out.
posted by IndigoJones at 6:15 PM on June 22, 2007

This NIH publication addresses your question (especially toward the end, around p.10). Here's the executive summary:

* Drinkers who smoke have 3x the risk of cirrhosis as non-smokers. Don't smoke.
* Drinking 4 or more cups of coffee/day reduces risk 4x.
* Taking SAMe may help replenish an important protective antioxidant in the liver (glutathione).
* polyunsaturated lecithin, aka phosphatidylcholine, appeared to stave off cirrhosis in lab monkeys (fun experiment, that) - but when taken off the lecithin the cirrhosis progressed faster.

This article gives some other strategies for minimizing liver damage.

If you're still drinking at this level when you're 50, though, liver disease is not unlikely. Chronic alcohol intake above safe levels does impair the liver's ability to regenerate itself (from the NIH article, my first link in this post).
posted by selfmedicating at 6:44 PM on June 22, 2007

Try alternating 1 alc then 1 alc free beverage in all your normal drinking settings? If cutting down has minimal impact on your enjoyment, then you can save yourself trying to draw the impossible line between harmful and not-harmful drinking.
posted by kch at 8:43 PM on June 22, 2007

My guess is as you get older your 2-3 nights a week drinking will drop to maybe 3-4 nights a month... I'd say enjoy your drink in moderation. Take breaks for occasional weeks. Live a healthy lifestyle, and really do avoid Acetaminophen if you plan to drink or after you drink - just pick another painkiller.

Don't worry too much about things, your liver is a resilient organ and can regenerate itself as long as it's not overly abused. Some say milk thistle helps, others say not. I'd say just live healthy and dont put too much stock in "miracle herbs" etc.

Cheers!
posted by clanger at 9:30 PM on June 22, 2007

Thanks clanger. That's a very positive take on this. You're absolutely right, there's no way im keeping this up through my 30's. I am starting to skip some weeks and maintaining other healthy parts of my lifestyle.

This is just common sense but I guess I just needed someone else to say it.
:)
posted by special-k at 2:28 PM on June 23, 2007