Can aerobic exercise reduce fatty liver?

For the vast majority of patients with simple fatty liver, insisting on regular aerobic exercise is indeed one of the most cost-effective intervention methods. Even many mild patients can completely reverse the disease without taking medicine and only rely on exercise and diet adjustment. Let me tell you a real story from my life. At the beginning of last year, I was diagnosed with mild fatty liver in my body test. My alanine aminotransferase was more than 20% higher than the normal value. I usually like to stay at home playing games and drinking milk tea. The doctor didn’t even prescribe any medicine, so he was asked to exercise for 3 months before re-examination. He later walked around the community for 40 minutes alternately after dinner four days a week. He only replaced his daily cup of milk tea with sugar-free oolong tea, and did not deliberately eat boiled vegetables. He went for a color ultrasound three months later. His fatty liver had completely disappeared and his transaminase had returned to the normal range.

In fact, the truth is not difficult to understand. When we do aerobic exercise, all the fat in the body will be mobilized to supply energy to the body. The excess triglycerides accumulated in the liver will slowly be "drawn out" and consumed. Incidentally, it can also improve insulin resistance and help reduce the metabolic burden on the liver. It is much more reliable than taking various liver-protecting health products.

However, not everyone can cure fatty liver by aerobic exercise. Now there are different opinions in the academic circles: If it has developed to the stage of steatohepatitis or even liver fibrosis, the effect of exercise alone is very limited, and it must be combined with medical intervention from a doctor.； There are also some people who have serious metabolic problems and obvious insulin resistance. They only exercise without adjusting their diet. They are high in oil and sugar and drink alcohol every day. Even if they run 5 kilometers a day, it is useless. I have met a patient before who runs 10 kilometers every morning, but he drinks two taels of white wine every day and likes to eat braised meat. After running for half a year, the fatty liver has changed from moderate to severe. The liver damage caused by alcohol cannot be compensated by that little exercise.

In addition, if you choose aerobic exercise, you don’t have to focus on running. Many patients with fatty liver have a large body weight, and hard running will hurt their knees. Swimming, elliptical machines, brisk walking and even square dancing with a moderate rhythm are all effective aerobic exercises. Each exercise should be controlled for 30 to 45 minutes. The heart rate is enough to be short of breath but still chatting with people normally. Don’t pursue high-intensity training to make yourself too tired, which will increase the burden on the liver. Aunt Zhang, who lives downstairs in my house, was diagnosed with mild fatty liver disease last year. She neither ran nor danced. She danced square dances with her sisters for 40 minutes every day after dinner, and went hiking together in the countryside on weekends. After a follow-up examination half a year later, the fatty liver disease was completely gone.