Diet taboos for liver cysts

The first is high-concentration alcohol consumed in large quantities for a long time, the second is the so-called "remedial remedies" and "liver-protecting supplements" with unknown ingredients, and the third is high-oil, high-sugar and heavy-salt foods that need to be controlled when combined with other underlying liver diseases. As for the statements that you can't eat seafood, touch "fat food", and can't eat eggs, they are all rumors without scientific basis.

I just met a 32-year-old girl at the outpatient clinic last week. A 1.2cm liver cyst was found during a physical examination. I went home and searched for taboos on the Internet for a long time. I didn't even dare to touch eggs, beef and mutton. She lost 6 pounds in half a month. When she came for a review, her face was sallow and her transaminase was a little higher than before. She was simply fooled by false information.

To put it bluntly, a simple liver cyst is a "small blister" on the liver. The outer wall is cells that secrete fluid, and the inside is filled with clear tissue fluid. It is neither a tumor nor a cancer. It will not suddenly grow bigger just because you eat two bites of crab or two pieces of mutton. Many people live with cysts for a lifetime without feeling anything. Just take an B-ultrasound every year to check the size. There is no need to put a bunch of dietary shackles on yourself.

Of course, it doesn’t mean that you can eat all kinds of stuff if you have a cyst. I just met a 40-year-old brother two months ago. He found a 2cm cyst and thought it was fine anyway. He drank high-strength liquor and had skewers for supper every day. Half a year later, the cyst had increased to 4.2cm. He also had moderate fatty liver disease and the liver area was swollen every day. It’s not that alcohol directly stimulates the cyst, but whether there is a cyst or not, long-term drinking of large amounts of alcohol will damage liver cells. If the liver cells around the cyst become inflamed and edematous, it may indirectly stimulate the secretion of cyst fluid. There is no need to gamble with your own body. If you really want to take a sip, it's not a big problem to have a glass of low-alcohol wine occasionally, just don't leave it for a while. Don't listen to those extreme statements about "you can't drink even a drop of alcohol". After all, life is not about a physical examination report.

What we need to be most vigilant about are actually all kinds of supplements and folk remedies of unknown origin. I have met no less than 10 patients in the past two years. Originally, the cyst was nothing. I heard that taking "Sanjie Ointment" and "Ganhuan Pill" can eliminate the cyst. After two or three months of taking it, the transaminase increased to 300 or 400, and the cyst was not even half a millimeter smaller. Let me be objective here. Some Chinese medicine studies do believe that the mild soft and hard dispersing prescriptions prescribed by traditional Chinese medicine doctors in regular hospitals can have a certain control effect on some fast-growing cysts. However, the premise is to find a doctor from a regular medical institution to prescribe according to your own constitution. Those "ancestral secret recipes" sold in WeChat Moments and popped up by search engines have a high probability of secretly adding illegal ingredients that damage the liver, so don't touch them.

If you do not have an ordinary simple liver cyst, but are diagnosed with polycystic liver disease—a special type of hereditary disease in which the entire liver is covered with cysts of varying sizes, often accompanied by polycystic kidney disease—then the dietary requirements are indeed much stricter. Don’t eat pickled foods that are too salty, and don’t eat heavy, oily, spicy foods that increase the metabolic burden on your liver and kidneys. In this case, don’t follow ordinary people’s dietary standards, and honestly find a doctor to customize a diet plan based on your liver and kidney functions.

A few days ago, a patient asked me if he could eat seafood. I directly told him to go back and eat shrimps, shrimps, and hairy crabs. As long as he is not allergic and does not weigh three to five pounds a meal, eating too much of anything will hurt the stomach and has nothing to do with the cyst. Some people also ask if they can drink coffee. It’s absolutely fine. One or two cups of black coffee a day has a protective effect on liver cells. Just don’t add half a cup of sugar and half a cup of non-dairy creamer.

To put it bluntly, liver cysts are really the type of abnormal physical examination that requires the least anxiety. As long as you don’t mess around with your diet, don’t believe random rumors, and eat and rest regularly, it is enough. If the cyst really grows to more than 5cm and has symptoms of compression, minimally invasive drainage will be done. If you don’t bother to look at the food table every day to see if you can eat it, you will make yourself malnourished, which is not worth the loss.