Fatty liver is a common disease in adults, and according to the data of the Health Insurance Review and Assessment Service, about 430,000 people visited the hospital with this fatty liver last year. The problem is that since it is a common disease, many people take it lightly. Fatty liver is a risk factor that may cause other liver diseases. Therefore, if you have been diagnosed with fatty liver, you should start treatment and management without delay. Three experts were asked about the importance and method of managing fatty liver.
Q. There are obesity and fatty liver. Can I just take medication?
The most important thing in the treatment of fatty liver is ‘weight loss’ through exercise and diet control. However, it is known that only about 50% of patients with fatty liver succeed in losing their target weight, and even if they succeed in losing weight, most of them return to their original weight.
Fatty liver is not a problem that can be solved only by medication. Basically, weight loss is the main principle, and it is good to understand and combine drug treatment as a helpful concept. If you have fatty liver, don’t forget that it can lead to cardiovascular disease or cerebrovascular disease in the future, so it must be treated and managed.
– Hidak Gastroenterology Consulting Doctor Jool Kim (Yonsei Hyu Internal Medicine Clinic)
Q. What kind of exercise should I do to manage fatty liver?
To treat fatty liver, you need to lose weight and lower blood lipids. Then I will give you the answer to how to exercise.
In fact, most importantly, any exercise is better than no exercise at all. You can exercise whenever you want, as long as you put your mind to it. Exercising barefoot for 10 to 20 minutes before taking a shower or going to bed, or doing push-ups, sit-ups, or sit-ups during lunch break can also be great strength exercises.
Start planning a few exercises right now. For example, ‘I’m going to do 50 sit-ups and 30 push-ups before going to bed’ or ‘I’m going to do 50 squats at lunchtime’. If you have time to exercise, try the following exercises. This is an easy exercise you can do at home.
*Cardiovascular exercise: walking in place
Even if you walk and run in place, your energy consumption is not much different from walking or running if you have a large and correct posture, and it may be higher. To expend more energy, raise your knees at a right angle and move your arms back and forth significantly. However, when placing your feet on the floor, place them as lightly as possible.
*Strength exercise: Upper body (push-ups), abdomen (sit-ups, leg raises, crunches, planks), lower body (squats, lunges)
– Hidak Exercise Counseling Yunsun Son (Exercise Specialist)
Q. So, how should I manage my diet?
You should cut back on foods that are too sweet or greasy to avoid consuming concentrated calories. In particular, intake of excessive carbohydrates or simple sugars raises the level of triglycerides in the body and does not improve fatty liver.
Fruit also contains a component called fructose, so it is not recommended to eat too much of it, but it is possible to consume about half a day for vitamin supplementation. It is necessary to control the intake of vegetable oils (cooking oil, olive oil, etc.) as well as animal fats. You can eat plenty of foods that are rich in fiber, vitamins, and minerals, but low in calories, such as grains and vegetables. You can also eat protein foods that are fish and meat, but be careful about fatty parts or types of meat or fish, which are animal foods, and choose light parts as much as possible.
– Hydak nutrition counseling Kim Gye-jin (nutritionist)
* This article has been reconstructed from a Hidak expert’s answer.
Help = Hidak Consulting Doctor Jool Kim (Yonsei Hyu Internal Medicine Clinic Gastroenterology Specialist), Hidak Exercise Counseling Son Yun-sun (Exercise Specialist), Hidak Nutrition Counseling Kim Gye-jin (nutritionist)