On the top/left below is what a normal liver looks like under the microscope. When you drink too much each individual liver cell develops a little ball of fat inside it. On the bottom/right is a fatty liver under the microscope - the white holes are the fat. If you drink really heavily for more than a few weeks the chances are that your liver will look like this.
Fatty liver is not in itself a massive problem, if you stop drinking or cut down to safe levels then the fat will go away. There are also other causes of fatty liver for example obese people may also have fatty livers, and some people with diabetes can develop fat in the liver although when the diabetes is well controlled it usually goes away. If you have more than one risk factor for a fatty liver, then you chances of developing more serious liver disease will go up. So for example if you overweight or have diabetes, then you should aim to drink less alcohol.
Many people will be familiar with Pate de Fois Gras. It is made by force-feeding geese to eat maize by putting a funnel down their throats. In French Foie = liver, and Gras = fat and if you looked at a fresh piece of Fois gras through the microscope it would look exactly like the picture on the right.
The problem with a fatty liver is that over a long period of time the liver becomes scarred when this is really bad we call this scarring, cirrhosis. The "DRINKULATOR" can tell you what your risk of liver disease is, and will give you specific advice about what, if anything, you need to do about it.
Message from me: Stop drinking alcohol to prevent liver cancer!
