Liquid Diet

Glycogen is a carbohydrate that is stored in your muscles and liver.  Eating carbs adds to the glycogen, not eating carbs burns the glycogen.

Everyone claims it shrinks your liver but to be honest it takes weeks and months of low carb eating to actually shrink your liver, what it DOES do is burn the slimy slippery glycogen off the surface of your liver making it easier for the surgeon.  If it is easier for him it is safer for you.

So absolutely, eating low carb solid foods does exactly the same thing for your liver as low carb liquids.  Low carb is low carb regardless of solids vs. liquids.

I was on a low carb (less than 50 grams a day) liquid diet for two weeks prior to my surgery.  I'm over 200 pounds overweight and had a rather large liver.  By the time I got into surgery, my liver absolutely had shrunk.  My surgeon said it was quite small.  Hell, I could tell just by palpating my own tummy.  I'd also lost a large amount of intra-abdominal fat. 

I haven't seen a peer reviewed article saying that liquid diets are necessary.  But, I also haven't seen articles saying that they're not.  I HAVE seen peer reviewed articles that say that there are less leaks and other complications in patients who adhere to a liquid diet prior to any abdominal surgery.  I know how peer reviewed articles and their publications work, having written a few of them myself.  The absence of an article doesn't prove or disprove anything.  It can either be an area without much interest, without much prior research, without current research, or it can be something the available publications have no interest in publishing.

I'm not sure it makes sense that a pre op diet would affect a staple line leak, the pre op diets are usually to get rid of the glycogen on the liver.

If you ask a doctor why they are telling people a liquid diet over basic Atkins they will generally shrug their shoulders and say, 'I don't know, it works for us.'

If someone is not pre op and they have fatty liver disease they are usually put on Atkins.  It's back to the glycogen issue.  There is no difference in low carb solids vs. low carb liquids for liver issues.

You just seemed hungry for peer reviewed article goodness and I'm telling you what I've read in just such an article.  I'm not sure that it has to make sense to you and I'm not sure that the authors fully understand the mechanics behind it.  The authors had simply found that there were fewer leaks among patients who had followed a liquid diet.  Again, as is the nature of peer reviewed articles, someone will likely come along later and build upon that finding or dispute it.  That's just the way it is.

Before i can really comment I'd need to see this article.  For example, are they referring to any pre op diet or only a liquid pre op diet, low carb or not?  I'd want to see their parameters and how large the study was, how experienced the surgeon was.  As a nurse it simply does not make sense.  i'm not doubting you, I'm just expressing an opinion.

A pre op diet is mostly for liver issues, it doesn't make the least bit of sense that this would affect a staple line.