Although I don't agree with all your observations they provide food for thought.
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At UCSF, a non-invasive procedure to track liver disease
April 13, 2011 | Length: 00:02:50
Non-alcoholic fatty liver disease, a condition virtually unheard of prior to 1980, is becoming more and more common around the world. As the name implies, the condition is not associated with excessive drinking, but with excessive weight. Until now, the only way to stage the disease was with periodic, invasive liver biopsies. But researchers are conducting a multi-site study using simple scans to measure the disease's progress.
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>> Fatty liver disease is a precursor of diabetes.
>> Oh, okay.
>> So this --
>> Ken Calstein assumed spelling is one of 80 million Americans with non-alcoholic fatty liver disease, or "NAFLD." Until recently, only periodic biopsies could tell the extent of the disease. A doctor inserts a long needle in between the ribs and snips off a tiny piece of the liver for analysis.
>> IT was just the stress and the anxiety and having to go through it and being in the hospital setting and being on a table and having the IV drips in your arm and being hooked up to the machine that's measuring your oxygen. It's scary.
>> Dr. inaudible is a professor of radiology at the University of California in San Francisco.
>> A major problem with liver biopsy, it's an invasive technique. It's painful. There are certain risks, including the risk of bleeding, bruising, infection.
>> Dr. inaudible is leading a study to see if they can use non-invasive MRI scans to stage NAFLD and other liver diseases, such as viral hepatitis. Dr. Rayfield Merriman assumed spelling is collaborating on the study.
>> The MRI scanner can really be thought of as one giant magnet. And within all of us, we have charged particles. When someone is put within an MRI scanner, and the scanner is turned on, it changes the charge in those particles. The ability of those charged particles to move is impaired by the presence of other things such as fat or inflammation.
>> That's what creates the images that show the differences between a healthy liver, a liver with fat stores -- And when the disease has progressed enough, the fat can lead to scarring, resulting in the condition known as cirrhosis and the possible need for an organ transplant. NAFALD is on the rise.
>> As the prevalence of both obesity and diabetes have risen in the U.S., so also has the prevalence of NAFLD.
>> Besides monitoring the disease, MRI scans can profoundly affect people's behavior.
>> Most people are very visual. If you can show a picture of a liver that's engulfed in fat and enlarged and compare it with an individual who has a normal liver, that can actually be sometimes a very strong motivation for people to actually change.
>> And I know you'll continue to focus on trying to lose some weight.
>> Yeah --
>> I've changed my diet; I've lost some weight.
>> Two of the behavioral changes known to improve fatty liver disease. For Smart Planet, I'm Simi Das.
==== Transcribed by Automatic Sync Technologies ====