There's a liver disease that resembles alcoholic liver disease, but occurs in people who drink little or no alcohol.

One year ago, Mary Jane Simmons went in for a normal blood lipid test to check her cholesterol levels, and during the process doctors discovered something they did not expect to find. "And that's when they found the fatty liver."

Fatty liver has the risk of getting inflamed and then it's called nonalcoholic steatohepatitis, also known as NASH. In the past a diagnosis of fatty liver was not that significant, but today that theory has changed. Gastroenterologist Asif Choudhury says, "Because whenever people develop fatty liver with inflamed liver their prognosis to develop liver cirrhosis or liver failure are almost same as people who are drinking alcohol."

Dr. Choudhury also says that a family history of the disease as well as eating fatty foods and leading a sedentary lifestyle can be causes of this disease. "Fatty foods and obesity leads to more common to fatty liver."

Currently there is no standard treatment for NASH. Mary Jane was given cholesterol medicine and was told to eat a low fat diet and she has started to exercise more regularly. "Three days a week for an hour on a treadmill and then I walk the dog besides that."

Since 95% of the cases of fatty liver have no symptoms, annual physicals become even more important to catch this condition in its early stages. Most of the time it's diagnosed from blood work.

It's important to make lifestyle changes if you're diagnosed with fatty liver because if it's left untreated it can lead to NASH, which can lead cirrhosis and there's even chance that it could develop into liver cancer.