TN50 #81, The Mechanics of a Fat Liver, 25 July 2022

Hi Team,

Happy Monday and welcome to The Next 50 #81.  Alright I’m starting my work week off right, I drop Ava at dance then I am out on a training run with hill repeats and I’m listening to THE DRIVE Podcast.  America rules baby!

Anywho, his guest this week is, Dr. Michael Gershon, Dr. G has been studying all things involving the gut for roughly 60 years.  The whole podcast was amazing, but I know you all won’t listen to it, except EN, she will listen to it, you go girl.  So here’s the big moment:

Your pyloric sphincter is only open approximately 1mm most of the day!!!, mic drop!

Ya, your duodenum, which is at the bottom of your stomach, has a sphincter at the top which separates the stomach from the duodenum, this sphincter is called the pyloric sphincter.  The pyloric sphincter stays pretty much locked down all day with only a 1mm opening.  Why are you not jumping up and down based on this new mechanical understanding of how you digest and absorb food?

OK, I’ll back up.  Large boluses of fructose are not handled well by the liver so when you have large boluses of fructose hitting the liver on a regular bases you end up with fat deposits in your liver also known as visceral fat.  This is bad, you do not want this.

Think about the following:

  1. You eat a piece of chicken and your digestive juices slowly break it down in your stomach before the nutrients pass through the 1mm gap.
  2. You eat an orange and your digestive juices slowly break it down in your stomach before the nutrients pass through the 1mm gap.
  3. You drink an 8-ounce glass of organic orange juice and the nutrients basically pass right through the 1mm gap.
  4. You eat a delicious “HOT” (people from the SE will get this) Krispy Cream donut and your digestive juices make quick work of the processed flour and sugar in your stomach before the nutrients pass through the 1mm gap.
  5. You drink a 12-ounce glass of whole milk and the nutrients basically pass right through the 1mm gap.

Which two examples have the best chance of adding fat to the liver?

If you said 3 and 5, you’d be wrong, from a velocity stand point juice and milk will get to the liver fast and unadulterated but lactose, in milk, is converted to glucose and gets launched into the blood for muscles to deal with.  OJ is fructose and a bolus of fructose hitting the liver is a no no, just like drinking too much alcohol.

If you said 2 and 3 you’d be wrong, an orange has a lot of fiber binding up the fructose so the fructose from an orange that makes it all the way to the liver arrives much more slowly, we already covered the OJ.

If you said 3 and 4, you’d be right, highly processed food like a donut (which is delicious, BTW) takes very little time to liquify and pass through the 1mm opening of the pyloric sphincter, and there is lot of fructose in donuts!  We already cover the oj.

 As always share the post with your team or anyone who might find it useful and let me know what you think.

Have a good one, Alex

PS. Thanks to those who gave feedback on my website, fpp.llc. if you have a few minutes, check it out and let me know what you think. Many thanks to Melissa and Todd for months of patients as we designed this, you two rock!!!

PSS.  You don’t really absorb any nutrients in your stomach, all that happens in your intestines, which… is why understanding the mechanics of the pyloric sphincter is so dang cool.

PSSS.  There are a trillion other things going on that I am ignoring in my quest to focus on the 1mm gap.