It is natural to look for simplified answers to health-related concerns. The shortest answer to your question, 'Can stress cause elevated liver enzymes?' is yes. Stress is a triggering but not a loner factor to compromise your hepatic health.
Stress and anxiety are enough to disturb the levels of your liver enzymes. Enzymes are proteinaceous and enhance the ongoing activity of a particular chemical reaction. Specific enzymes perform specific functions. Liver enzymes are proteins that operate and improve the abilities of biochemical processes occurring in the liver.
This enhancement is mandatory for a normal and healthy digestive system. The easiest way to tackle illnesses is to boost mineral and vitamin energy reservoirs via balanced meals, regular physical activity, and supplementation.
What Does a Liver Do?
The human liver comprises two main parts – the larger right lobe and the smaller left lobe. These lobes contain a complex mesh of blood vessels in which the blood travels through the liver. Besides, lobes have thousands of small lobes (called lobules), which connect with many bile ducts (tubes) that transport bile from the liver to the small intestine.
The liver cleans and filters the blood, making it completely free of all sorts of wastes and toxins – excreted from the body as urine and feces. In addition, it also produces proteins and produces enzymes to ease the process of digestion.
An Insight to Liver Enzymes
The enzymes of your liver are significant in regulating the body's metabolism. Your liver is capable of producing several enzymes, out of which a few are mainly considered:
Alanine transaminase (ALT)
Gamma-glutamyl transferase (GGT)
Alkaline Phosphatase (ALP) (SGPT)
Aspartate transaminase (AST) (SGOT)
Regulation of erythrocytes or red blood cells, production, and storage of glucose in the form of glycogen, blood detoxification, and body waste removal are a few functions liver enzymes perform.
Your healthcare professionals will ask you to get liver function tests (LFTs) in case of any susceptibility. This test relies on measuring the liver enzyme level and determining how well your liver is functioning. Understanding your health's overall well-being sometimes demands a complete blood count (CBC – commonly known as a blood test) and LFTs.
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Can Stress Cause Elevated Liver Enzymes?
Learning about stress can cause elevated liver enzymes is necessary to have a general idea of your health condition before visiting your doctor. The liver is one of the most complex body organs that perform the functions of production, assimilation, storage, and disposal of mandatory body substances. Both increased and decreased levels of liver enzymes require an immediate curative response.
Liver enzymes are naturally produced from hepatocytes that have died now. You can say that dead liver cells give rise to the production of liver proteins (because enzymes are proteins in nature!)
Stress impacts the level of enzymes. Some common causes of elevated liver enzymes are as follows:
Imbalanced meals
Physical inactivity
Excessive alcohol consumption
Drug abuse
Chronic and metabolic diseases, such as heart attack or stroke
Autoimmune diseases, such as autoimmune hepatitis
Severe muscular inflammation
Liver cancer
Celiac disease
Viral hepatitis, such as hepatitis B and C
Cirrhosis
Fatty liver disease
COVID-19
Side effects of certain medications
Reference Range of Liver Enzymes
All types of standard biochemical profiles lie within a specific range that doesn't indicate potential health damages. But slight variations impose specific threats that must be taken into immediate consideration.
Consulting your doctor will reveal if there's any need to run a liver function test. For this purpose, your blood sample will be sent to the laboratory for further examination. Humans are different from each other, which is why a specific reference range, measured in units per liter (U/L), has been allotted to accommodate all sorts of liver normality. Working on your health and immune system will help your blood profile sway within normal limits.
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Variations below or above this range would be an alarming situation.
ALT: 4 – 36 U/L
GGT: 0 – 30 U/L
ALP: 44 – 147 U/L
AST: men = 14 – 20 U/L, women = 10 – 36 U/L
Final Wrap Up
Summing up the solutions to 'Can stress cause elevated liver enzymes?', it is concluded that hepatic hormones can quickly get out of balance but nothing to worry about. The slightest reduced or elevated disturbances can compromise the standard functionality, making you prone to various medical conditions and diseases. Effective stress management techniques like meditation support your liver and ensure a long-lasting, happy, and healthy life.