Look What Happened to Her Liver After She Became Addicted to Red Bull
Look What Happened to Her Liver After She Became Addicted to Red Bull
Red Bull is normally seen as a harmless energy drink that is great for helping people to stay alert. However, drinking too much of it can cause serious problems. Most people do not drink excessive amounts, but it is possible to harm your health with Red Bull. One British woman who was addicted to Red Bull ended up in the hospital with organ damage from her habit.
26 year old Mary Allwood regularly drank 20 cans of Red Bull each day. She drank so much caffeine that it was equal to 16 cups of coffee. The sugar in 20 cans is the same as eating 17 candy bars a day. Mary estimated that she would spend about £2,300 each year feeding her caffeine and sugar addiction. It also caused her to go from a size 16 to a size 24 in clothing. Red Bull was normally the only liquid Mary drank.
A few months back, Mary’s addiction finally caught up with her. She started having serious pain in her side and rushed to the hospital. It turned out that Mary’s liver was double its natural size. This type of liver damage is normally associated with severe alcoholism. The doctors originally thought that she was just lying when Mary said she never drank alcohol.
Once they learned how many energy drinks she drank, they realized that the sugar was causing the problem. Mary was diagnosed with fibrosis of the liver which can eventually lead to liver disease. If she had kept up with her Red Bull habit, Mary most likely would have died of liver failure eventually.
Excessive amounts of sugar harm the liver by making fat build up on this organ. The liver is responsible for filtering toxins from the body. Normally, it can regenerate after being damaged. However, eating too much sugar can stop this process. The body cannot use all of this sugar as energy, so it is stored as fat. The fat build up on the liver starts to damage liver cells. Over time, this damage causes scar tissue, and the scar tissue keeps the liver from growing new cells.
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Most people think that alcohol is the only way to harm the liver. However, a Canadian study found that too much sugar is just as dangerous as alcohol. Since liver disease is the fifth highest cause of death, the increase in sugar is a huge problem. On average, people eat almost 26 teaspoons of sugar through all the processed foods and drinks they consume.
Mary had the first stage of liver disease which is called fatty liver disease. The only symptoms of fatty liver disease are a huge liver, vague pain, a swollen stomach, and feeling tired. At this stage, the damage is reversible if the patient decides to get healthy. The fat in the liver can eventually be reduced until the liver starts working properly again. In Mary’s case, this meant immediately stopping her addiction. All of the sugar was damaging her liver even more rapidly than alcohol.
Mary decided to stop her Red Bull addiction immediately. She quit using the energy drink and started drinking six litres of water each day instead. For the first month, Mary had a lot of withdrawal symptoms. The brain gets used to functioning with caffeine, so it tends to overload on sensation when the addictions are removed. This causes caffeine and sugar addicts like Mary to have headaches, tremors, and mood swings.
Almost half a year later, Mary is now completely healthy. She has dropped all the excessive weight, and tests show that her liver is now a normal size. Since the fatty liver disease was caught in time, she does not even have excessive liver scar tissue. Mary may be healthy now, but her experience has changed her life. She is committed to raising awareness about the dangers of so much sugar and caffeine.
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