Elevated Liver Enzymes

A place to get your questions answered from McDougall staff dietitian, Jeff Novick, MS, RDN.

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Elevated Liver Enzymes

Postby Dann » Wed Apr 19, 2017 4:37 pm

Hi Jeff,

When you have some time, I was hoping to get your thoughts on the question below. I realize you can’t answer specific medical questions, so I will pose this as a general question.

Have you ever heard of a situation where someone who switched to a whole food plant based diet (just over two years now) found that their ALT (SGPT) liver enzymes began to gradually increase? It’s not a rapid increase. It seems to be happening gradually. The acceptable ALT range is 0 – 44, and it has risen to 47 and a few months later increased to 52. In the past, my ALT level was always in the normal range (in fact, right in the middle of the range), and only started rising sometime after I started a plant based diet. My AST (SGOT) level is in the normal range (most recently 29 out of a range of 0 – 40).

In all your years of working in this field, have you ever heard of anything like this before? Is it common?

Do you think that losing weight (about 12 pounds fairly rapidly) could have something to do with the elevation in ALT level? Although I did not want to lose weight as I am already a skinny person (about 134 pounds and 5 feet 10-1/2 inches tall), I lost about 12 pounds after I became plant-based (I dropped from about 140 pounds down to about 128). I do not drink alcohol regularly. If I am at a party, I will sometimes have one drink (and most times nothing).

Do you have any suggestions for any other forums where it may be a good idea to ask this question?

Thank you in advance for your thoughts/suggestions. I really appreciate it.

Best regards,
Dann
Dann
 
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