vendredi 9 avril 2021

FATTY LIVER, WHAT CAN WE DO? DRINK SOME CUBAN COFFEE..

One of the simple pleasures in life is to sip a cup of Cuban Coffee. I walk to the nearest cafe, and order a Cortadito which is a Cuban style coffee with a little bit of milk. 

A question frequently asked by patients is that they have been told that they have fat in the liver and they should loose weight. If loosing weight was such an easy proposition as going to the store and buying a pair of shoes, we would have no Diabetes, no Hypertension and a slew of metabolic diseases.. But loosing weight, according to those trying to loose weight, is not easy.

The prevalence of fatty liver in the USA is between 25 and 33 per cent, let us say 30 %. The coffee culture in America is abominable despite the well off population trying to make Starbucks richer. Coffee sold in most places in the USA or "brewed" at workplaces is an insult to Ethiopia the birth place of coffee. 

But there is always a good cup of Cuban coffee for me. I do not suffer from Fatty liver but I can never resist a Cortadito.

I do recommend at least two to three cups of coffee per day for my patients with NAFLD," said Abdelmalek, professor of medicine and a gastroenterologist at Duke University, Durham, N.C.

Her thinking on this recommendation has been influenced by a meta-analysis of 16 studies including more than 3,000 coffee drinkers and 132,000 nonconsumers; the meta-analysis concluded that coffee drinkers were 39% less likely to develop cirrhosis. There was evidence of a dose-response effect: Consumers of two or more cups daily had a 47% reduction in the risk of cirrhosis, compared with the nondrinkers, while more modest consumption was associated with a 34% reduction. Moreover, the investigators found that coffee consumption was also associated with a 27% reduction in the likelihood of developing advanced hepatic fibrosis, compared with that of non–coffee drinkers.

"What's even more provocative is the evidence that coffee decreases risk of hepatocellular carcinoma," the gastroenterologist said.

Suddenly it occurred to me , what is the level of Fatty Liver in Cuba? 

During the Periodo Especial I am sure it was zero, but since then?

A cross-sectional, multicenter study was carried out in 6601 adults seen at gastroenterology outpatient clinics of nine hospitals in seven Cuban provinces from September 2018 through May 2019. Non-alcoholic fatty liver disease was diagnosed by abdominal ultrasound. The study included 1070 patients who met the diagnostic 

that is 16% prevalence , 

ie a 45 % reduction than the people of Yuma (estados unidos)

I can vouch to you that it is rare to meet a cuban who does not drink at least few cups of coffee per day, so following the logic and thoughts of the Gastroenterologist from Duke University, this reduction must be due to the habit of imbibing the good coffee in Cuba!

Thank you Cortadito

My sister in Havana can brew a mean cup of cuban cofffee and I add the milk into it to make it a Cortadito, whereas most Cuban seem to prefer the Cuba without milk.

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