On 25 January, physician-researcher Dr. Laurens van Kleef obtained his PhD at Erasmus University for his research into fatty liver disease. In it, he shows that study participants with fatty liver exercise a little less every day and that an extra 15 minutes of daily exercise already helps to combat fatty liver disease.
Fatty liver affects about 1 in 3 people and is closely related to being overweight. It is estimated that 10% of them have already suffered minor liver damage without noticing it.
For his research, Van Kleef used data on over-45s from the ERGO study. About 700 study participants wore a running watch that monitored their physical activity for 7 days. They exercised an average of 245 minutes a day, of which 20 minutes were intensive, 75 minutes were moderate and 150 minutes were light exercise. Van Kleef then studied liver scans of the participants and found that participants without fatty liver exercised slightly more daily (252 minutes) than those with fatty liver (236 minutes). A difference of only 16 minutes and the ratio between light, medium and intensive exercise did not matter.
Van Kleef therefore advises to move a little more. The advantage is that fatty liver disease is reversible, just like early stage liver damage; it often disappears as the energy balance is restored. So starting with more exercise always makes sense.
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