Everyone is currently wringing their hands over the current epidemics of obesity and type 2 diabetes. Unfortunately, a new storm is brewing--liver disease. Often overlooked by the media is that the underlying cause of obesity and type 2 diabetes is insulin resistance, which is also the underlying cause of fatty liver disease. This condition takes longer to become established than either obesity or type 2 diabetes, but if untreated, it becomes a major cause of liver failure. New research by David Ludwig and his colleagues at Harvard Medical School in the September 2007 issue of Obesity shows conclusively that a low glycemic-load diet (rich in fruits and vegetables) prevents fatty liver development, while a high glycemic-load diet (rich in refined grains and starches) accelerates it.
The implications for the future of public health are staggering since the primary treatment for liver failure is a liver transplant, and frankly there are not enough livers available even today. The one diet that has been constantly validated to reverse insulin resistance is the Zone Diet. I hope that the medical establishment will wake up to that fact before these growing epidemics destroy our health-care system.