What Is Hepatic Lipidosis (Fatty Liver Disease)?
Hepatic lipidosis, or fatty liver disease, is the most common serious liver disease in cats and is caused by rapid fat mobilisation when a cat stops eating. When a cat goes without food for as little as 24–48 hours, the liver becomes overwhelmed processing fat, impairing its function. It can be fatal without aggressive nutritional support.
Understanding Hepatic Lipidosis (Fatty Liver Disease)
Unlike most liver diseases in other species, hepatic lipidosis in cats is directly caused by not eating rather than by a toxin or infection. When a cat stops eating, fat reserves are rapidly mobilised and transported to the liver for energy conversion. The feline liver has a limited capacity to process this fat influx and becomes engorged with lipid deposits, disrupting normal liver function.
Hepatic lipidosis can develop in any cat that stops eating, but obese cats are at highest risk because they have larger fat reserves to mobilise rapidly. The condition often begins as a secondary response to another illness (dental pain, stress, upper respiratory infection, a change in environment) that causes the cat to stop eating, with hepatic lipidosis then developing as a complication.
Treatment requires nutritional support delivered via feeding tube in most cases — a nasoesophageal, oesophagostomy, or gastrostomy tube is placed to allow consistent caloric intake while the liver recovers. Treatment typically takes 4–8 weeks. With aggressive treatment, prognosis is good (60–80% recovery). Without treatment, the condition is fatal. This is why any cat that stops eating for 24–48 hours needs veterinary evaluation urgently, not watchful waiting.