Too much sitting can cause fatty liver disease
Too much sitting around may increase the chances of having non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) that may potentially lead to liver failure and death, new research has found.
The researchers studied records of nearly 140,000 Koreans who underwent a health exam between March 2011 and December 2013. Their results were published in the Journal of Hepatology.
“We found that prolonged sitting time and decreased physical activity level were positively associated with the prevalence of NAFLD in a large sample of middle-aged Koreans,” said lead investigator Seungho Ryu from Sungkyunkwan University School of Medicine, Seoul, South Korea.
Physical activity level and sitting time were assessed using the Korean version of the international Physical Activity Questionnaire Short Form. The presence of fatty liver was determined using ultrasonography — of the people studied, nearly 40,000 had NAFLD.
Importantly, researchers found that both prolonged sitting time and decreased physical activity level were independently associated with increasing prevalence of NAFLD.
Remarkably, these associations were also observed in patients who were not obese.
“The message is clear; our chairs are slowly but surely killing us. Our body is designed to move and it is not surprising that sedentary behavior, characterised by low muscle activity, has a direct impact on physiology,” said Michael Trenell, professor of metabolism and lifestyle medicine at Newcastle University in England.
“With a dearth of approved drug therapies for NAFLD, lifestyle changes remain the cornerstone of clinical care,” Trenell said.
