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Thanks GT2
Sent you PM

Assoc. Prof. Leon Adams, a co-inventor of the hepascore blood test, contributed to an article in The West Australian today explaining what fatty liver disease is and how it can be reversed. HCV and toxic visceral fat flowing into the liver are not a good mix. I encourage anyone who now has more energy to burn to start exercising to reduce any excess fat around their mid-drift. I am doing it and feel a lot better for it.

Good diet the enemy of fatty livers [Print edition title]

Eat well to beat fatty liver disease [Online edition title]

PETA RASDIEN

June 08, 2016

As rates of obesity steadily rise in Australia so too do those for non-alcoholic fatty liver disease. And, just like obesity, the disease is becoming more common in younger patients, causing alarm among the medical profession. In 2011, 12.8 per cent of 17-year-olds in the Raine study — one of the biggest cohort studies in the world following participants from birth into early adulthood — had fatty liver disease: 16.3 per cent of females and 10.1 per cent of males. Peak prevalence for the disease is usually among people in their 50s.

The Gastroenterological Society of Australia estimates about 10 per cent of all Australians are affected. Liver disease specialist Associate Professor Leon Adams, from the University of WA school of medicine and pharmacology, said the liver was the prime organ involved in the metabolism of glucose and fats. “When it is fatty, this metabolism is disturbed and that leads to insulin resistance and a susceptibility to diabetes in the future and also abnormalities in the cholesterol and lipid profile that increase the risk of heart disease and strokes,” he said.

A fatty liver is closely associated with obesity, particularly central obesity, where there is a build-up of toxic visceral fat that flows into the liver. Patients who have type 2 diabetes or inherited liver disease can also be at risk. In a small proportion of people it causes the liver to become toxic, causing inflammation and scarring with the potential to progress to cirrhosis and end-stage liver disease.

Professor Adams said the main culprit of fatty liver was diet. Those with the disease had been shown to have higher- calorie diets, where they ate higher amounts of saturated fats and simple sugars and less fibre and antioxidant vitamins. “There’s also good evidence to demonstrate that if in adolescence they have a dietary habit that is poor — full of junk food, processed meats — that increases the risk substantially of developing fatty liver disease as a late adolescent or young adult,” Professor Adams said. “This demonstrates that bad dietary habits in our children are setting them on a life course trajectory of ill health.”

Professor Adams said the build-up of fat in the liver could occur quickly, within weeks in extreme cases but more usually across months and years in parallel with weight gain. The good news was that, unless it had already progressed to cirrhosis, fatty liver could also be cured in the majority of cases by lifestyle changes. Losing 10 per cent of your body weight by modifying diet and increasing exercise would reverse the condition for 90 per cent of people.

But Professor Adams warned that was often easier said than done. “The actual process of getting people to lose 10 per cent of their body weight is more sophisticated than you think.” Weight loss was unlikely to have an impact for those who had progressed to cirrhosis of the liver and a liver transplant might be the only option.

Amanda Lee, chairwoman of the Australian Dietary Guidelines Committee, said diet was now the number one contributor to the burden of disease in Australia and junk food was the biggest villain. “It contributes to diabetes, cardiovascular disease, some forms of cancer — all of which are increasing in importance and having a huge drain already on our health resources, but that will increase into the future,” she said.

Professor Lee, who was in Perth recently to support the launch of a new LiveLighter campaign to urge West Australians to reduce their junk-food consumption, said the average Australian spent more than half their food dollars on junk food. For adults, over 35 per cent of energy intake was now coming from junk foods while for children it was over 41 per cent. “Those junk foods have a negative impact on our health but they also displace the healthier foods we are not eating enough of, so we need a radical diet change,” she said.

The West Australian

health.thewest.com.au/news/2916/eat-well...-fatty-liver-disease

I was diagnosed with the hepatitis C virus (HCV) genotype 2 (GT2). The only treatment available on the PBS in Australia is Sofosbuvir (SOF) + Ribavirin (RBV). The main reason why I chose generic SOF + DCV, given its similar efficacy to SOF + RBV, was to avoid the well documented side effects of RBV. GT2 is relatively rare in Australia. A GT2 diagnosis, however, may in fact be HCV GT2k/1b, which is not recognised by commonly used genotyping assays. If that is the case, then SOF + RBV is insufficient with relapse rates greater than 90%. See PS001 (directly under “Viral Hepatitis C (1)”) below:



This adds weight to why the pan-genotypic SOF + DCV is a better choice for GT2s.

Generic SOF + DCV is now available in a single tablet called Darvoni.

Dr Andrew Hill’s and Dr James Freeman’s input into the development of Darvoni can be read here:

fixhepc.com/forum/media-news/1053-darvoni-story.html

For more information about Darvoni, click on the link below:

www.darvoni.com/

“Knowledge is power. Knowledge shared is power multiplied.”
Robert Noyce

Cheers

GT2

Nice find GT2 thanks for posting it. Will probably come in handy in, at least pointing people in the right direction. Always helps to go in "informed" when you need "go in"

MK

That's rather mind bending, earth shattering - potentially life altering, life or death type vital information.... Perhaps that should be posted under its own topic and 'stickied'.

Yukky Riba many of us have been down the riba tunnel
I'm aware of friends here who have compensated livers who have added some riba to their sof combo to just add that extra percentage
It's not an easy drug to handle and when combined with peginf is a shocker, however I think that it's not as vile combined with the new DAAs, just from others stories.
Great article yes GT2, it would be also tricky having one of the more unusual genotypes I am sure. I was gen 1A which as you probs know was hopeless with peginfer stuff but with these meds I responded immediately!
I can't wait til you post your EOT and UND! Keep us all posted and ty
Cheers from Ariel

10 weeks completed and two to go.

The diagram below gives a nice succinct representation on how exercise can reduce IR and your blood sugar. This is what I have been concentrating on ever since being shocked by a fasting blood glucose result of 11.9 on 9/5/16.




The key is to include aerobic exercises, resistance training, and interval training into your exercise regime. I’m a member of a local council sporting complex that has a heated 50m outdoor pool and a recently refurbished gym. I combine cardio with whole body weight sessions and swim laps on alternative days. This works for me. Over the last 10 weeks I have lost 6.5kg and my last 7 day FBG has averaged 6.4 (ranging from 5.4 to 6.7). So, my average FBG is still in the pre-diabetes range, but it’s slowly getting better.

I’ve been getting a funny feeling in my heart/chest over the last week, so I’ve decided to take it easy for a while. With all my extra energy, I’ve probably been over doing it a bit. You only ever get out of life what you put into it. I’ve put in the hard yards over the last 10 weeks, and now it’s time for a rest.






Cheers

GT2

What an informative post. Thanks GT2.
Loved the cartoon

Zoom zoom zoom
Last two weeks b4 and the week or so after EOT
Hold on the rides almost over Westie
Great post about exercise
Looking forward to your EOT it seems so fast this tx!
Happies to you GT2
Ariel

I took my last generic SOF + DCV tablets today. I’ll start my journey along the road to SVR tomorrow. I’m hoping for a trouble free trip, with plans to purr along at cruising speed, and take plenty of rest stops along the way. If the next 3 months go by as quick as the last 3 months, I’ll be as happy as a teenager in a souped-up VW Beetle with a Porsche badge glued to its boot & bonnet (trunk & hood).

The last 2 weeks of my treatment have been a bit of a bumpy ride. I didn’t do any exercise during the second last week, and started to feel worse after 3 days. After a week of no exercise, I was lethargic, started getting headaches, and was feeling flat as a tack in general. I thought resting would reinvigorate me, but it had the opposite effect. Thankfully, the funny feeling (tightness) in my chest/heart went away during this time, which was a relief, but my fasting blood glucose increased back up to the high 6s.



I started exercising again during the last week, at random times whenever I had the energy, and started to feel better again after a couple of days. The headaches stopped. I put this down to drinking more water while exercising. It’s an easy way to make sure you drink plenty of water during winter. Now I’m feeling a lot better. The moral of the story is to do regular moderate exercise, but don’t overdo it.

Over the 12 weeks of treatment I have lost just over 7kg, mainly around my mid drift. I’m very happy about not having a “beer gut” anymore. The upside is the “’We aim to please, you aim too please” sign in the toilet is no longer needed, now that I’ve got line of sight. The downside is, after dinner while lying back in my recliner watching the nightly news, I no longer have a convenient spot to rest my coffee mug.



Over the next 4 weeks, I will slowly increase my exercise routine and closely monitor my fasting blood glucose. If it has not significantly improved during this time, I will get the necessary test done to obtain a prescription for metformin. I may simply be predisposed to type 2 diabetes (T2D) and HCV may have brought my T2D progression forward by a decade or two. Time will tell.



The wealth of information on this forum has answered all my questions that I ever have had about HCV and its treatment, questions that I would never have had time to ask, or even had thought about asking, while having a face to face consultation with a medical professional. The daily input by Dr Freeman, the FixHepC team, the moderators, and other forum members sharing their experiences, helped to keep my treatment on track, kept me updated on HCV treatment developments, and gave me solace that I’m not the only one going through this. Thanks to you all.

I recommend to any HCV sufferer, who has had trouble accessing HCV treatment or has failed past treatment, to join this forum and start their generic HCV treatment. It’ll probably turn out to be the best decision about your health that you have ever made. Do yourself a favour, and hop to it.



As the sun slowly goes down on my last day of treatment, I’ll leave you with the below sunset at Cable Beach, Western Australia. I have a near identical photo like this of my silhouette while I was fishing at Cable Beach as the sun kissed the Indian Ocean. I’ll dig it up and post it for my SVR12, if I get there, as it reminds me of good times in the past and gives me hope of good times in the future.



Wishing everyone HCV RNA Undies from Down Under

GT2

Excellent post GT2

you have inspired me to get on the treadmill.

All the very best to you Mate

Well GT2, you outdid yerself agin! Great post with great news, my friend. I'm only half the race behind you and headed for the last laps. Can't wait to see that checkered flag. Then the really fun part. Joining all of you who started the race ahead of me, in the winners circle where you get to welcome the next finishers. That's where the real party is and I know you'll be there GT2. Looking forward to seeing you when I get there along with surfer girls and mermaids from OZ, one of them who has it down pat1, London ladies, guys with names like fitz and Sven. Dairy products like cheese, those Irishman, west coast girls, east coast guys. Guys named Guy. Man who speaks in shoe. Fighters against greed, fighters against HCV, a man named Kevin, and of course a sweet Spanish speaking girl with flowers in her hair, who offers everyone she meets a prayerful smile. The list goes on .... unfortunately, I can't. You know who you are!
Bedtime for Bozo. G'night GT2 and ALL who visit him here.

Congrats GT2 on EOT
I have really appreciated your fun approach whilst on your tx and light tone of heart, and one day I will wind up surfing your coasts..... it's about the sharks can you sort that with your fishing prowess please (haha)
(without offending sharks or any of their relatives, a lot of lives have been lost in WA lately)
I love your EOT to SVR picture and the stunning beach photo ty
Here's a YouTube of your surf to celebrate your EOT and its got a fine lyric to ride onwards to SVR
Wishing you the very best
Splashes from Ariel

Awesome post GT2
to reach EOT - it's a wonderful feeling
Best wishes for SVR