Penn State College of Medicine researchers confirmed exercise can result in meaningful reductions in liver fat for patients with nonalcoholic fatty liver disease. While prior research hadn’t determined the required amount of exercise for clinically meaningful improvement, the College of Medicine found 150 minutes per week of brisk walking achieved significant reductions in liver fat.
Our findings can provide physicians the arrogance to prescribe exercise as a treatment for nonalcoholic fatty liver disease. Having a goal amount of physical activity to aim for will probably be useful for health care and exercise professionals to develop personalized approaches as they assist patients modify their lifestyles and turn out to be more physically lively.”
Dr. Jonathan Stine, associate professor of drugs and public health sciences, and hepatologist at Penn State Health Milton S. Hershey Medical Center
Nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) affects near 30% of the worldwide population and over time, can result in cirrhosis, also generally known as liver scarring, and cancer. There aren’t any approved drug treatments or an efficient cure for this common condition, nevertheless, research has shown that exercise can improve liver fat, physical fitness, body composition and quality of life for patients.
“Exercise is a life-style modification, so the incontrovertible fact that it would match the power of in-development therapeutics to realize the identical end result is important,” said Stine, a Penn State Cancer Institute researcher. “Clinicians counseling patients with nonalcoholic fatty liver disease should recommend this amount of activity to their patients. Brisk walking or light cycling for a half an hour a day five times per week is only one example of a program that may meet these criteria.”
The outcomes were published within the American Journal of Gastroenterology.
Kara DiJoseph and Rohit Loomba of the University of California San Diego; Zach Pattison, Alex Harrington, Kathryn Schmitz and Vernon Chinchilli of Penn State College of Medicine also contributed to this research. Penn State researchers haven’t any conflicts of interest to reveal.
This research was supported by the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases of the National Institutes of Health (Award Number K23DK131290). The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and doesn’t necessarily represent the official views of the National Institutes of Health.
Source:
Penn State Health Milton S. Hershey Medical Center