How Does Liver Disease Affect A1C?
Healthful Vitality | 12/06/2022 | How Does Liver Disease Affect A1C?
The liver is the chemical factor of the human body. It produces the most vital chemicals or at least prefabricates various essential compounds. It also stores vital nutrients from glucose, vitamins to many more. The liver is also an organ that plays a critical role in the body’s detoxification. Without the liver, many drugs and toxins would remain in the body forever, causing much damage.
The liver plays a central role in the metabolism of glucose, lipid, proteins, vitamins, other bioactive compounds.
Diabetes is a metabolic disorder. It means that changes in the liver play an important role in disease development.
High cholesterol, excessive liver production
In diabetes, even if one reduces carb intake significantly, the blood glucose remains high. The reason is simple, in those living with diabetes, high glucose production by the liver plays an important role. Similarly, in those living with high cholesterol, excessive liver production plays a central role.
Since in diabetes, glucose production by the liver plays an important role, and this high production is significantly responsible for organ damage, it means that the liver also plays an important role in A1C. Therefore, it means that lowering A1C is vital to lower glucose production in the liver.
In diabetes, there is already a high blood glucose level, so it appears that higher glucose production by the liver is counterproductive. Therefore, the question arises why the liver keeps producing excessive glucose when there is already so much glucose.
How does liver disease affect A1C?
In the body, there is a negative feedback mechanism. It means that the liver must know about excessive blood glucose. Hence, why does it still not listen to various signals and keep producing more and more glucose?
There are two explanations for this. Firstly, due to insulin resistance, glucose cannot enter the body cells. It means that body cells are starving for energy despite high blood glucose. So, they keep sending various signals, and the liver tries to help body cells by producing more glucose. However, such a response only aggravates things.
Secondly, insulin appears to have a much more significant say in metabolism and related issues. Therefore, the liver listens to the signals sent in the form of insulin. If insulin is high, the liver stops producing glucose as it understands that there is sufficient glucose in the blood. However, if insulin is low, the liver cannot estimate things. Low insulin is a signal for the liver to produce more glucose.
Therefore, in those living with diabetes, glucose metabolism is dysregulated. Despite its abundance, the body cells cannot utilize it, and the liver keeps producing it.
This kind of stress is not suitable for the liver. Over time, liver cells start dying, and fats start accumulating in the liver. In addition, a higher number of connective tissues also grow in the liver. This only worsens the condition, further promoting liver function dysregulation.
To sum up, diabetes is a complex metabolic disorder. In the long run, it affects the working of almost every organ, from muscles, kidneys, and brain, to the liver. Dysfunction of some of these organs, like the liver and kidneys, only worsens things for those with diabetes. Thus, higher A1C is also an indicator of greater organ damage in diabetes.
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