Diet taboos for acute hepatitis

Absolutely abstain from alcohol, avoid processed foods that are high in fat and oil, highly irritating, and have complex added ingredients. At the same time, do not blindly take supplements and folk remedies that increase the metabolic burden on the liver.

Don't believe it, I have been in the gastroenterology department for almost ten years. I just received a 28-year-old hepatitis A patient last month. When he was discharged from the hospital, his transaminase had dropped to normal levels. I was so greedy that I secretly had a butter hotpot with a friend. The next day, I felt nauseous and fatigued. The transaminase level soared to over 800 during the re-examination, so I came back and stayed in the hospital for a week. Think about it, the liver during an acute attack is like a logistics warehouse washed by floods. It is already saturated with the workload of cleaning damaged cells and metabolizing waste. If you stuff it with high-fat and heavy goods such as fried chicken, fat meat, and cream cakes, wouldn't it be blocked and unable to function?

Speaking of nutritional supplements, in fact, for so many years in clinical practice, there has been ongoing controversy about whether high protein can be eaten during the acute phase. The old school of diagnosis and treatment ideas requires strict protein restriction, fearing that ammonia produced by protein decomposition cannot be metabolized by the damaged liver and induce hepatic encephalopathy. ； However, the guidelines in recent years have also been updated. If the patient does not have signs of hepatic encephalopathy such as lethargy, confusion, or poor orientation, there is no need to eat porridge and vegetables every day. Eating a boiled egg white and a small piece of steamed seabass every day can provide raw materials for liver cell repair, and there is no need to go to the extreme of being a vegetarian. Of course, don’t touch foods that are high in fat and protein, such as fat meat, animal offal, and animal skin.

Of course, what is even more untouchable than heavy oil hot pot is alcohol. Whether it is 53-degree liquor or so-called "zero-alcohol" fruit beer, or even alcoholic sparkling water, as long as ethanol is present, liver cells will be directly damaged. There was a patient with an acute attack of chronic hepatitis B. Before he was discharged from the hospital, he thought he was almost healed, so he drank half a bottle of cold beer while having a barbecue. The next day, jaundice suddenly appeared, and his face was as yellow as a peeled orange. He stayed in the hospital for another half month. As for irritating foods such as raw garlic and chili peppers, it doesn’t mean that you can’t eat them at all. If you don’t like spicy food, it’s okay to add less in the stir-fry to enhance the flavor. As long as you don’t eat spicy food every time and cause gastrointestinal discomfort, there is no need to lose your appetite for food because of taboos, which will be detrimental to recovery.

Another pitfall that many people step on is eating "liver-protecting" things indiscriminately. I had an aunt who had just been discharged from the hospital with acute hepatitis E. She heard from her neighbors that Panax notoginseng powder and Cordyceps sinensis could nourish the liver. She drank two large cups of it every day. Within half a month of drinking, her whole body turned yellow. She came to check for drug-induced liver damage. Those folk remedies, health products, and liver-protecting supplements with unknown ingredients that have not been clinically verified require the liver to metabolize the added ingredients. The liver, which is already good enough, simply cannot bear this extra burden. Try to avoid pickles, bacon, fast foods with a lot of preservatives, and high-sugar milk tea. Nitrite, artificial additives, and excess fructose are all things that mess up the liver.

In fact, to put it bluntly, the diet for acute hepatitis really doesn’t have so many rules. The core is just one: treat the liver like a person who has just finished a marathon, feed it fresh food that is easy to digest and has a low burden, and don’t torment it. When you are really not sure whether you can eat it, just take a bite and try it. If you don’t feel nausea or bloating after eating, you can eat a small amount. After all, being able to eat and keep up with nutrition is the fastest way to recover. If you really can't remember so much, just stick to the seven words "fresh, light, and less processed", which is more reliable than any folklore liver-nourishing recipe.