Diet taboos for liver hemangioma

There are only three dietary taboos that patients with hepatic hemangioma really need to pay attention to - never drink alcohol for a long time, don't eat Heisei high-fat, high-sugar and high-cholesterol foods all year round, and don't take random supplements that claim to "eliminate tumors" and "protect the liver." As for the online rumors about not eating hairy foods, not touching soy products, and not eating spicy food, they are all rumors and are not even necessary.

Hey, don’t tell me, when I was helping at the Hepatobiliary Surgery Department a while ago, I actually met a 29-year-old young man. A 1.1cm hepatic hemangioma was found during the physical examination. He was so frightened that he drank white porridge for half a month and did not even dare to touch eggs. When he came for a follow-up examination, he staggered when he walked. The hemangioma did not grow at all. His lower limbs, which were first deficient in protein, were slightly edematous, which made the treating director angry and funny.

Let’s first talk about why those three items are really important to pay attention to. The first is alcohol. Doctors in both surgery and gastroenterology have the highest consensus on this: Alcohol needs to be metabolized by the liver. Long-term intake, no matter how much or how little, will increase the metabolic burden on liver cells. Although hepatic hemangioma is essentially a benign vascular endothelial malformation and will not become malignant at all, the blood vessels themselves are more fragile than normal liver tissue. Long-term alcohol stimulates the vascular endothelium and increases liver pressure. People who have no symptoms may experience discomfort under the right rib. Of course, there are a few scholars who think that drinking one or two glasses of low-alcohol alcohol once a year will not have any impact, but clinically, everyone is basically advised to quit. After all, it is not something that must be touched, so you can’t take the risk, right?

Then there are foods with high fat, high sugar and high cholesterol. Doctors from different departments do have different views on this: Most surgeons believe that the growth of liver hemangioma is mainly related to innate blood vessel development and hormone levels. High blood lipids have minimal impact on it. As long as you don’t eat fatty meat, fried chicken, and full-sugar milk tea all the time, there is no need to deliberately avoid these foods.； However, gastroenterologists usually advise everyone to control the amount as much as possible. After all, even if hemangioma is not considered, fatty liver caused by long-term high-oil and high-sugar diet will still put a burden on the liver. I once met an aunt who ate braised pork every day and gained 20 pounds in half a year. Although the hemangioma did not grow much during the physical examination, she had moderate fatty liver and blood lipids soared to three times the normal value, so she had to treat the fatty liver first.

What we need to be most wary of is actually the pits that are filled indiscriminately. Many people panic when they are diagnosed with hemangioma. They bring liver-protecting tablets, Panax notoginseng powder, and cordyceps to their homes, and even seek folk remedies that say they can "remove tumors." Last year, we took in an aunt in her 50s and took the so-called "old Chinese medicine anti-tumor prescription" for three months. Not only did the hemangioma grow from 2.3cm to 2.5cm, but the transaminases soared to 320. She suffered drug-induced liver damage, and it took her a week in the hospital to heal. Let me tell you the truth here: Hepatic hemangiomas smaller than 5cm and with no symptoms of compression do not require treatment at all. Currently, there are no oral medications that can eliminate them. Taking supplements will increase the metabolic burden on the liver, which is simply a waste of money.

As for those random taboos posted on the Internet, there is really no need to take them seriously. What beef, mutton, and seafood are "hair products" that will stimulate tumor growth? It is pure nonsense. These are high-quality proteins. Eating them normally can help the liver maintain normal metabolic functions. Unless you are allergic to these foods, you should eat them. They also said that they should not eat spicy food. Last time, a patient from Chongqing came for a review and said that she had not touched hot pot for half a year to recuperate, and her whole mood was not right. Our director directly told her, "Just eat it when you get home. As long as you don't have stomachache or diarrhea after eating, it will be fine." - Capsaicin does not affect the liver blood vessels at all. If the food is taboo and the quality of life is reduced, it is really not worth the loss.

I have been outpatients for so long, and I have seen too many people who are anxious about liver hemangioma. In fact, to put it bluntly, the dietary requirements of this disease are not much different from those of healthy people. Don’t scare yourself and live a life of water and water, which will lead to malnutrition and decreased immunity. As long as you don't indulge in excessive drinking, don't eat hazelnuts every day and end up with fatty liver disease, don't just follow up on folk remedies and take medicines blindly, and do a follow-up B-ultrasound every year, relaxing is more effective than any taboo.