Love your liver: Check your liver health today

Added 08/01/2014

Stethoscope

January is Love Your Liver month, a campaign organised by the British Liver Trust that aims to educate people about their liver health and the risks to this vital organ - the largest gland and largest solid organ in the body.

You can check your own liver health by using the Love Your Liver campaign’s Health Check tool online, at loveyourliver.org.uk

Check your liver health now >>

Although liver disease can be deadly, the fact that the leading causes are poor lifestyle choices, such as large alcohol intakes and bad diets which are high in fat, means that we can all take action to improve our liver health.

You can start looking after your liver by cutting down on alcohol, as well as drinking lots of water and eating healthily and exercising -- all the basics of being a healthy person.

The liver has around 500 functions; among the most important ones are the removal of harmful substances from the blood as well as absorbing nutrients and converting them into energy. It also processes digested food, controls fat levels and removes infections in the blood such as bacteria.

It can be very difficult to detect damage to the liver, and disease may have set in long before it is diagnosed. It’s therefore known as a silent killer, as generally symptoms don’t appear until far into the disease’s progression, by which time it may be too late to help the patient.

In England and Wales, liver disease is the fifth largest cause of death, and the numbers are rising. More than 16,000 people died in the UK from liver disease in 2008, representing a 4.5 percent jump on the previous year.

Alarmingly, deaths from liver disease have leaped by 12 percent in three years from 2005, and if the trend continues, liver disease deaths may double in the next two decades.

Check how your liver is doing by using the Love Your Liver campaign’s Health Check tool online, at loveyourliver.org.uk

Check your liver health now >>

Travel insurance for liver disease

If you suffer from liver disease of any kind and are planning a holiday abroad it is very important to get the right travel insurance to ensure that you are properly covered in the event that you need emergency medical treatment whilst you are away. (You will need to declare your liver disease and any other medical conditions to your travel insurer in order to be fully covered).

Goodtogoinsurance.com is proud to be able to provide travel insurance for all types of medical conditions including liver disease.

Get a travel insurance quote >>

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