Why Nutrition Matters in Liver Cirrhosis (1 CME Point)

Date: 7:00 pm Monday 30th Mar 2026

Why Nutrition Matters in Liver Cirrhosis explores the critical yet often under-recognised role of nutrition in the management of liver disease. This session will explain how cirrhosis disrupts metabolism, digestion, and whole-body physiology, leading to significant nutritional consequences such as malnutrition, sarcopenia, frailty, and increased infection risk.

Using sarcopenia as a key example, the presentation will highlight how muscle loss develops and why it is strongly associated with poorer clinical outcomes. The session will conclude with practical, clinically relevant considerations to help healthcare professionals better identify and support patients living with cirrhosis, emphasising nutrition as a core component of care rather than an adjunct.

Learning Objectives

By the end of this session, participants will be able to:

  • Describe how liver cirrhosis alters metabolism and overall physiology
  • Recognise key nutritional consequences, including malnutrition, infection risk, and functional decline
  • Explain why patients with cirrhosis are at high risk of sarcopenia and frailty
  • Understand the role of nutrition in influencing disease progression and patient outcomes
  • Identify key signs and practical strategies when supporting individuals living with cirrhosis

Date: 7:00 pm Monday 30th Mar 2026

Webinar Speakers:

Alice serves as  Nutrition Education Lead and is also a Senior Nutritionist for Nutritank. Her main role is organising speakers for Nutritank’s medical nutrition education programme and also supporting with the creation of their lifestyle medicine courses. Alongside Nutritank’s lead dietitian Rachel White, she also supervises students from universities across the UK who come to do their healthcare placements. Outside of Nutritank, she works as a health coach for the NHS National Diabetes Prevention Programme, supporting individuals with type 2 diabetes prevention and tier 2 weight management. Her previous work has been across the food industry, agriculture, nutrition education, with an academic placement at the University of Oxford focused on neonatal nutrition and pain perception research at the John Radcliffe Hospital.

Committed to the intersection of mental health and nutrition, Alice has a particular interest in nutritional psychiatry and trauma-informed care. She is a peer reviewer for the BMJ Nutrition, Prevention & Health and has written for publications including The BMJ, Daily Telegraph, and Psychologies magazine.

Alice is an active advocate for social equity in nutrition. She founded Nutrition United, a global network bringing professionals together to collaborate regarding education, food poverty and nutritional inequalities. She is a trustee of the Ember Foundation, advocating for Afghan women and girls who are experiencing gender apartheid impacting their access to education and healthcare, and volunteers as Clinical Nutrition Lead for Mind Health for Medical Students and mentors emerging professionals in nutrition and dietetics.

Drawing from her personal experiences as a survivor of the A.C.E cult, Alice is passionate about supporting survivors of trauma through evidence-based lifestyle strategies including nutrition, movement, and stress management. She is a qualified trauma-informed yoga teacher, and has experience of working in voluntary mental health support roles  with women affected by domestic abuse, spiritual abuse and coercive control.

Her goal is to empower individuals through personalised nutrition and  lifestyle medicine interventions to improve their health, contribute to the growing field of nutritional psychiatry, and help create more inclusive pathways for women in science and healthcare.

Alice serves as  Nutrition Education Lead and is also a Senior Nutritionist for Nutritank. Her main role is organising speakers for Nutritank’s medical nutrition education programme and also supporting with the creation of their lifestyle medicine courses. Alongside Nutritank’s lead dietitian Rachel White, she also supervises students from universities across the UK who come to do their healthcare placements. Outside of Nutritank, she works as a health coach for the NHS National Diabetes Prevention Programme, supporting individuals with type 2 diabetes prevention and tier 2 weight management. Her previous work has been across the food industry, agriculture, nutrition education, with an academic placement at the University of Oxford focused on neonatal nutrition and pain perception research at the John Radcliffe Hospital.

Committed to the intersection of mental health and nutrition, Alice has a particular interest in nutritional psychiatry and trauma-informed care. She is a peer reviewer for the BMJ Nutrition, Prevention & Health and has written for publications including The BMJ, Daily Telegraph, and Psychologies magazine.

Alice is an active advocate for social equity in nutrition. She founded Nutrition United, a global network bringing professionals together to collaborate regarding education, food poverty and nutritional inequalities. She is a trustee of the Ember Foundation, advocating for Afghan women and girls who are experiencing gender apartheid impacting their access to education and healthcare, and volunteers as Clinical Nutrition Lead for Mind Health for Medical Students and mentors emerging professionals in nutrition and dietetics.

Drawing from her personal experiences as a survivor of the A.C.E cult, Alice is passionate about supporting survivors of trauma through evidence-based lifestyle strategies including nutrition, movement, and stress management. She is a qualified trauma-informed yoga teacher, and has experience of working in voluntary mental health support roles  with women affected by domestic abuse, spiritual abuse and coercive control.

Her goal is to empower individuals through personalised nutrition and  lifestyle medicine interventions to improve their health, contribute to the growing field of nutritional psychiatry, and help create more inclusive pathways for women in science and healthcare.

Balkrishan Parekh

Alice serves as  Nutrition Education Lead and is also a Senior Nutritionist for Nutritank. Her main role is organising speakers for Nutritank’s medical nutrition education programme and also supporting with the creation of their lifestyle medicine courses. Alongside Nutritank’s lead dietitian Rachel White, she also supervises students from universities across the UK who come to do their healthcare placements. Outside of Nutritank, she works as a health coach for the NHS National Diabetes Prevention Programme, supporting individuals with type 2 diabetes prevention and tier 2 weight management. Her previous work has been across the food industry, agriculture, nutrition education, with an academic placement at the University of Oxford focused on neonatal nutrition and pain perception research at the John Radcliffe Hospital.

Committed to the intersection of mental health and nutrition, Alice has a particular interest in nutritional psychiatry and trauma-informed care. She is a peer reviewer for the BMJ Nutrition, Prevention & Health and has written for publications including The BMJ, Daily Telegraph, and Psychologies magazine.

Alice is an active advocate for social equity in nutrition. She founded Nutrition United, a global network bringing professionals together to collaborate regarding education, food poverty and nutritional inequalities. She is a trustee of the Ember Foundation, advocating for Afghan women and girls who are experiencing gender apartheid impacting their access to education and healthcare, and volunteers as Clinical Nutrition Lead for Mind Health for Medical Students and mentors emerging professionals in nutrition and dietetics.

Drawing from her personal experiences as a survivor of the A.C.E cult, Alice is passionate about supporting survivors of trauma through evidence-based lifestyle strategies including nutrition, movement, and stress management. She is a qualified trauma-informed yoga teacher, and has experience of working in voluntary mental health support roles  with women affected by domestic abuse, spiritual abuse and coercive control.

Her goal is to empower individuals through personalised nutrition and  lifestyle medicine interventions to improve their health, contribute to the growing field of nutritional psychiatry, and help create more inclusive pathways for women in science and healthcare.

I am a UK-registered dietitian specialising in liver disease, working with patients across the full pathway from prevention and early liver disease through to advanced cirrhosis and post-liver transplant care. My work focuses on improving how we understand and support people living with liver disease, particularly challenging the stigma that many patients experience and helping clinicians recognise the powerful role that nutrition, muscle health and physical function play in outcomes. Alongside clinical practice, I run a specialist liver nutrition clinic and collaborate with charities, universities and national organisations to improve education and awareness around liver health. I have contributed to educational work with the British Liver Trust and Alcohol Change UK, and support student education at Birmingham City University. I am also a member of the Allied Health Professional group within the British Association for the Study of the Liver. My work centres on empowering both patients and clinicians to see nutrition and exercise not simply as supportive care, but as key interventions in liver disease management

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