On April 16, 2022, Senior’s Today hosted their weekly Health Live webinars with Dr Tom Cherian, a leading Liver Specialist & Surgeon at Wockhardt Hospitals & South Asian Liver Institute who spoke on and answered questions on Liver Care for seniors. This session is being conducted on the occasion of World Liver Day which is on April 19, 2022.
Dr Tom Cherian is a leading liver specialist and surgeon, and is attached to the Wockhardt Hospitals and South Asian Liver Institute.
Dr Tom Cherian Cherian obtained his speciality FRCS and received his Certificate of Completion of Specialist Training [CCST] in 2008. On finishing his training, he worked for five years at King’s College hospital, London, before returning to India. He has over 12 years experience in advanced pancreatic and liver surgery (with over 300 major resections), including. anatomical laparoscopic liver resections. He has performed over 650 liver transplants including. paediatric, split, and auxiliary transplants and has trained several consultant surgeons.
He is the recipient of eight travel grants with over 84 publications and 100 international presentations. He is an ACS accredited, ATLS Instructor and British Journal of Surgery Prize paper speaker (2007 & 2008). He has an International Advanced Tx Diploma Switzerland and is a Sub-investigator for Phase III international MCTs. Dr Cherian is an MD Examiner for the Universita di Pisa, Italy. Currently Senior advisor (Telangana state) for Liver Transplantation.
The liver, as far as we know, does not age much as compared to your muscles as you grow old. Which means that you might not be able to climb a flight of stairs with the same ease at 70 as you did when you were 20; but your liver will be able to digest your food just as well at 70 as it did when you were 20.
Having said that, there is still age related damage to the liver, if it is not looked after. But it is also one of those organs that does not require much looking after. If you eat a healthy diet, maintain your ideal body weight, consume alcohol sensibly and take steps to correct your lifestyle, it is all that is required to keep the liver healthy.
By making good lifestyle choices all that we are doing is maintaining its regenerative properties and ensure that it stays in good health.
Fatty liver is very common. It is also not something that should be taken lightly. About 30% of the liver transplants are for fatty liver. But it is not necessary that all fatty livers require a liver transplant. The key is to look for the progress of the disease.
A simple abdominal ultrasound and a basic liver function test is all that is needed as an initial screening tool.
To decide whether an individual requires a liver transplant it is important to find the answer to two questions- what is causing the disease? And has the disease reached a point of irreversibility.
All probiotics contain a little bit of fat and sugar to make them palatable. And they are not necessarily required to be consumed on a regular basis if you maintain a regular and healthy diet.
So if you’re taking it once or twice a week, there is no harm.
When it comes to deciding how much alcohol should be consumed to keep the liver healthy, there is no specific answer, you can never know how much is too much but moderation is the key. All of that also depends on the build of the individual as well. The bigger the liver, the better will be its ability to metabolise the toxins.
Statins are not known to cause any damage with the liver. Though statins do have an effect on the muscles and the kidneys but not so much on the liver. However idiosyncratic reactions can occur, even if they are rare.
There is a misconception that a vegetarian diet is a healthy diet which does not always hold true. So, it is not about the kind of diet but the preparation of the meal.
