There’s a new medical term I’ve seen popping up in the media lately: nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD). Unfortunately we’re going to be seeing a lot more of it in the future, because it’s very common in people who are overweight or obese. In fact, the incidence of NAFLD tracks pretty closely with the obesity rate in the United States: about 30%.

According to the Centers for Disease Control, about one-third of adults (33.8%) in the U.S. are obese.

And according to a study done in Dallas County, Texas, 33.6% of the adults living there had NAFLD.  A more comprehensive study presented at the International Liver Congress in Berlin estimated the prevalence of NAFLD in Western countries at between 20% and 30%, and predicted this figure would increase to 50% by 2030.

What Is Nonalcoholic Fatty Liver Disease?

Also known as hepatic steatosis, NAFLD is a condition of elevated triglycerides in your liver. Remember triglycerides? They’re that mysterious third number in your cholesterol results, after the “good cholesterol” and the “bad cholesterol,” and the one (I would argue) most worth paying attention to. Left untreated, NAFLD escalates to nonalcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH), where the liver becomes inflamed and damage starts to occur. The next step is cirrhosis of the liver, sometimes progressing to liver cancer, and finally death.

I was quite surprised to find out that nonalcoholic fatty liver disease is the exact same condition as the fatty liver disease that alcoholics get after years of drinking—except that no drinking is involved (that’s what the “non-“ is for). I’ve known for years that alcohol can give you cirrhosis if you drink too much of it. Thankfully, this was never a problem for me, but as I started doing more research, I found out that I was poisoning myself in other ways—I just didn’t know it.

I had a sense of betrayal as I slowly put the pieces together and realized that the so-called “balanced diet” I had been eating was making me sicker and sicker. The medical profession and the media kept telling me I was taking good care of myself, but I wasn’t.