Page 20 - I Have Fatty Liver：What Does It Mean and What Should I Do?

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Q&A

Women have higher chance of developing fatty liver?

In fact, among the same age groups, women have less chance of getting
fatty liver as compared to men. For male population, the risk of getting
fatty liver increases with age but the risk among women are quite static

throughout the age till menopause. However, right after menopause, the
risk of women developing fatty liver catches up and till the extent almost
similar to their male counterpart.

What are lean fatty livers?

It is being defined as a person not overweight or obese with BMI < 23
2
kg/m but having fatty liver disease. There are 2 possibilities on this
situation:

▪ The person is young and just started to accumulate fat around their
abdomen. The person may have central obesity (high waist
circumference) and accumulated the fat around their abdominal organ
(visceral fat).

▪ Among the older populations in which they had severe fatty liver or at
the advanced stage of fatty liver, they start to lose their muscle mass
which reflected as normal BMI.

For person with lean fatty liver, it is still recommended for weight

reduction but perhaps just a 3% - 5% reduction would be sufficient to
reverse the fatty liver.

However, such group of patients need to be seen by a Gastroenterologist
& Hepatologist to rule out other less common causes of fatty liver such as
autoimmune hepatitis or some inherited disease like Wilson disease.