Dengue virus and its treatment can affect liver

In a dengue patient, the virus and the painkillers are a double whammy that can leave the liver scarred. During an attack, a patient pops painkillers and paracetamols. When they act, the body exacts a cost for suppressing the pain by affecting the liver since this organ treats all painkillers as poison, even paracetamol. So a patient is caught between taking and not taking medicines and a damaged liver takes months to recover.

A large percentage of dengue patients end up with such liver dysfunction. Experts who have observed the patients said levels of certain enzymes and proteins in patients' blood go up or drop in reference to the normal count indicating liver problems.

Abdominal pain, vomiting and loss of appetite are the earliest symptoms. Yellowish discolouration of the eyes or urine and abdominal tenderness are warning signs of liver damage.

Counselling high-risk patients with underlying medical conditions like diabetes and hypertension, stopping medications like paracetamol, known to deteriorate liver function, is still the first line of care. Patients also need supportive care, proper hydration and consistent monitoring of liver function indicators through blood tests.

Dengue virus attacks the cells that cause inflammation in the liver. The Alanine Aminotransferase (ALT) and Amino Alanine Transferase (AST) enzymes increase in number in the blood during the time and may cause complications including damage to liver.

Liver damage in dengue infection is not preventable, but doctors can reduce paracetamol and other medicines which can cause liver toxicity. Liver involvement is more commonly seen in those who have dengue haemorrhagic fever, a severe form of dengue. Early detection can help save lives.

The most commonly used indicators of liver damage are alanine aminotransferase (ALT) and aspartate aminotransferase (AST), referred to as the SGPT and SGOT.

Levels of these enzymes usually begin to increase from an early stage (day 1-3 of illness) and peak during the second week of illness. Proper medical care can help avert liver damage.

Banned Chemical dyes poisoning our food and can cause liver damage

That yellow-tinted appetizing dum biryani from restaurants or the silver-coated kaju barfi from sweet shops that we love to treat ourselves may not be all safe for consumption and have severe health implications. Despite a government ban on toxic chemical dyes like metalin yellow and silver, food adulteration using these chemical colours is going on unchecked in India.

In fact, biryani samples collected recently from some of the restaurants in Vishakapatnam revealed the presence of metalin yellow. This banned chemical substance was also found in daal and other cooked curries and biryani in eateries. Similarly, the chemically-induced silver colour layer is used by most sweets shops to make the products look attractive. Ideally, a thin silver sheet should be placed on the sweets but lab analysis found that almost all sweet shops, with an eye on profits, use cheap tin foil that is a toxic heavy metal.

Most of cities in India with hundreds of eating joints have only few food inspectors and no exclusive food safety inspection department to keep an eye on things.

Had there been proper and unbiased inspection of all small and big eateries, many food centres will fail the lab test either for adulterating food with banned chemical colours or for using food colours beyond the FDA (Food and Drug Administration) permissible limit.

According to experts, the presence of these toxic and carcinogenic chemical dyes used in food has several adverse impacts on health and can cause irreparable damage to the kidneys and also affect the liver, the two most vital organs. The chemical dyes affect the nephrons and when the kidney can't filter the chemicals, they get deposited in the kidneys and lead to chronic kidney diseases. Again, the toxic and poisonous substances are sent by the body to the liver for treating or processing. When they can't be treated, they start depositing the substance in the liver. After a while, the deposits cause degeneration of the liver and eventually cause liver cancer.

Apart from the more harmful synthetic dyes used as food colouring substances in eateries, bakeries and confectionaries, at times relatively less harmful metal salts are used in raw food, for instance copper sulphate to impart green colour to vegetables. Metal salts usually escape the screening process meant to detect chemical dyes. They pass off as natural colours in High Performance Liquid Chromatography (HPLC) Test.

Cinnamon-flavoured foods may harm liver

Scientists have found that many kinds of cinnamon, cinnamon-flavored foods, beverages and food supplements in the United States use a form of the spice that contains high levels of a natural substance that may cause liver damage in some sensitive people.

Cinnamon, which comes from the bark of certain trees, is one of the most important flavoring agents used in foods and beverages. Ceylon cinnamon is expensive, so most breads, sticky buns and other products in the United States use dried cassia bark, or cassia cinnamon.

Ceylon cinnamon contains very little coumarin, a naturally occurring substance that has been linked to liver damage in people sensitive to the substance.

However, cassia cinnamon can contain larger amounts of coumarin. When the scientists checked on the coumarin content of a wide variety of food products and they found that coumarin was present, sometimes in substantial amounts, in cinnamon-based food supplements and cinnamon-flavored foods.

Too much acetaminophen can cause liver damage

Each year, hundreds of people suffer from liver damage associated with taking too much acetaminophen, U.S. health officials say.

Officials at the U.S. Food and Drug Administration said on several occasions the agency has asked its expert advisory committees for advice about acetaminophen, used to treat pain and fever, but also found in hundreds of over-the-counter and prescription medicines. Based on this advice and extensive review of the available scientific evidence, the FDA continues to believe that acetaminophen's benefits outweigh its risks.
 

Many people taking these products might not be aware they contain this active ingredient. Taking too much acetaminophen can damage your liver. So it's important to check products, both OTC and prescription, before taking to see if they contain acetaminophen and to make sure we know how to take safely.

The OTC products that combine acetaminophen with other ingredients often treat the pain and fever that come with conditions like a cold and the flu. In prescription medicines, acetaminophen is combined with other ingredients to help relieve moderate to severe pain, the FDA said.

To make sure you don't get too much acetaminophen, look at the labels of all the medicines you plan to use, the FDA advised. On OTC medicines, the word acetaminophen appears on the front of the package and on the Drug Facts label under the "Active Ingredient" section.

On prescription medicines, the label may spell out acetaminophen or have a shortened version of it, such as "APAP," "acet," "acetamin," and "acetaminoph." If you aren't sure if your medicine contains acetaminophen, ask your healthcare professional for help, officials said.