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This is not really modern science. It has been known for millennia that overfeeding geese with sweet fruits is how you make "foie gras" (which is why in the Ro
by adrian_b 1y ago
This is not really modern science.
It has been known for millennia that overfeeding geese with sweet fruits is how you make "foie gras" (which is why in the Romance languages the name for liver comes from figs, replacing the original Indo-European name, which was still used in Classic Latin).
There is no surprise that the same thing happens in humans.
The liver must process all the fructose from sugar and all the alcohol that are ingested. Excessive amounts of either of them will overload the liver capacity of processing them, which also varies between humans.
- JumpCrisscross 1y ago> in the Romance languages the name for liver comes from figs, replacing the original Indo-European name, which was still used in Classic Latin Liver comes “from Proto-Germanic librn” [1]. Meanwhile, “the Ancient Greek and Latin words for liver (hepar and iecur) always referred to ‘liver’ directly” [2]. (“The original PIE word would have sounded something like yoqur or yequr.”) None of which sounds like the Latin ficus for fig. (EDIT: Oh, that’s the point.) [1] https://www.etymonline.com/word/liver https://www.etymonline.com/word/liver [2] https://www.journal-of-hepatology.eu/article/S0168-8278(24)02616-3/pdf https://www.journal-of-hepatology.eu/article/S0168-8278(24)0...
- adrian_b 1y agoThe Romance languages did not inherit the Latin word "iecur", which is cognate with the Greek "hepar", both being inherited from PIE. Portuguese: figado Spanish: higado Catalan: fetge French: foie Italian: fegato Romanian: ficat all being derived from Late Latin "ficatum", which comes from "ficus", Latin for "fig".
- JumpCrisscross 1y agoOooh, I see what you mean. Thank you—super interesting. Strange that the PIE word made it to Greek and Latin but not German.