How to improve your MELD score

If you know someone who is diagnosed with more advanced stages of liver disease, then you might have heard of the term MELD score.

MELD refers to the model for end-stage liver disease. It is a scoring system that shows how urgently a patient needs a liver transplant.

Since MELD score is often used as a way to predict a patient’s prognosis, many patients try hard to improve their score in the hope of better health. Before we move on to the discussion of how MELD score can be lowered, let’s take a look at how doctors calculate MELD scores.

How is MELD score determined?

MELD score has a range from 6 to 40 which ranks a patient’s liver disease severity. The higher the score, the more serious the liver disease is. It is calculated based on the lab test results of the following levels:

• Creatinine level – an indicator of kidney function
• Bilirubin level – an indicator of liver function
• INR (international normalized ratio) – how well your blood clots (the higher the number, the longer it takes for your blood to clot)
• Serum sodium level – the amount of sodium in blood

The creatinine and bilirubin levels and the INR in liver disease patients are often elevated, while the serum sodium level is often low. MELD score is calculated from time to time depending on how high/low the score is, ranging from once a year to once every week.

Can MELD score be lowered?

Since MELD score is exclusively used in patients with more urgent needs for liver transplants, their liver function is particularly low when compared with other liver disease patients. Therefore, to lower MELD scores, extra attention must be paid to improving both liver and kidney health.

Through YHK: Having over 25 years of history of helping people around the world to improve liver health, YHK is scientifically proven to recover liver functions. It helps repair damaged liver cells with its 3 major properties – antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, and anti-fibrotic. Clinical data and users feedback show that YHK is highly beneficial to the liver and users reported continuous consumption of YHK can help lower their MELD score.

Through diets: Limit protein intake – have enough but not too much. Since high protein intake is linked to an increase of creatinine level, patients should have control over their protein intake, e.g. eat less red meat as they tend to have a high protein content. Eat more fibre, especially fruits that are red in colour, as they have a substance called “lycopene” that may be beneficial to liver health.

Through exercise: Engage in regular but gentle exercise. As intense exercises might not be the best options for liver disease patients in this case, mild exercises such as taking a walk can definitely help improve liver health.