Fatty liver disease on rise in urban, rural areas: AIG survey

Hyderabad: Sedentary lifestyle, poor dietary habits resulting in obesity, uncontrolled diabetes and hypertension are leading to significant increase in Non-Alcoholic Fatty Liver Disease (NAFLD) among people in urban and rural areas, a door-to-door survey taken-up by doctors from Hyderabad-based Asian Institute of Gastroenterology (AIG), said. More than 25 per cent of people in urban areas […]

Hyderabad: Sedentary lifestyle, poor dietary habits resulting in obesity, uncontrolled diabetes and hypertension are leading to significant increase in Non-Alcoholic Fatty Liver Disease (NAFLD) among people in urban and rural areas, a door-to-door survey taken-up by doctors from Hyderabad-based Asian Institute of Gastroenterology (AIG), said.

More than 25 per cent of people in urban areas and 20 per cent in rural areas have fatty liver disease, the findings from AIG’s rural outreach program taken up in Telangana, has indicated. The clinical data from the survey has shown that 4 out of 10 people might have fatty liver disease.

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“NAFLD is becoming an epidemic in our country because of sedentary lifestyle and poor dietary habits. The concerning factor is that NAFLD doesn’t show many symptoms and therefore it is mainly diagnosed incidentally. We are conducting our rural outreach program with an objective to screen the rural population for various GI diseases for which we do abdominal ultrasound in rural areas. Surprisingly, close to 20 per cent of the scans showed the presence of fatty liver,” Chairman and Chief of Gastroenterology, AIG Hospitals, Dr. D Nageshwar Reddy, said while sharing some of the incidental findings from the clinical data collected during the survey, on Thursday.

Dr. Mithun Sharma, Director, Hepatology, AIG Hospitals said “major factors that are driving cases of fatty liver are obesity, uncontrolled diabetes and hypertension. We now know that management of fatty liver is not just about the liver but also includes effective treatment of blood sugar, hypertension and obesity.”

Public awareness plays a big role in combating fatty lver disease because the first line of treatment for NAFLD is weight loss, through a combination of calorie reduction, exercise, and healthy eating.

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