Nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) is one disease without “fat bulges,” but somehow manages to grow fat inside. It means that even if you don’t drink, you can still grow liver fat and become ill.

Liver is as commonplace as it can be taken for granted. (Chicken and pork livers are favorite Filipino dishes, anyway. Or who has not enjoyed the taste of crispy squid with thin, crunchy slices of potatoes?) And, it is often to our own regret.

One crucial function of the liver is its role in clearing toxic substances (such as drugs and alcohol), and excess food chemicals (such as energy and iron) from the bloodstream. It absorbs these substances, chemically alter them, and then store them somewhere or excrete them in the bile. It can regenerate, repair, or replace injured tissue, including its own. It is so structured that if one section gets damaged, the other sections perform the functions of the injured area indefinitely or until the damaged section is repaired.

But, wonderful as this gift maybe, its regenerative abilities can be overwhelmed through neglect, abuse or ignorance.

Liver diseases range from mild infections to life-threatening liver failure. “Heavy alcohol use, over many years,” noted Madhusudana Girija Sanal in a 2008 study published in the World Journal of Gastroenterology, “causes fat deposits to build up in the liver, which can cause scarring and destruction of the liver cells.” Sanal is a senior researcher at the Special Center for Molecular Medicine in Jawaharlal Nehru University (New Delhi, India).

When this happens, toxins are not adequately removed from the liver and accumulate there, she continued.