Health experts in a discussion held last October 26 raised alarm over obesity, which may cause a silent disease called Metabolic-Associated Fatty Liver Disease (MAFLD).
Angelo Lozada, president of the Hepatology Society of the Philippines, said individuals who have risk factors, such as hypertension, diabetes, and obesity, may develop a fatty liver.
Moreover, he noted that people in their 30s are more at risk of MAFLD as these individuals are already suffering from high cholesterol, sugar, and triglycerides.
People tend to focus on, for example, their hypertension or their cholesterol, but they tend to forget that these things can actually have an effect on the liver, which is making it fatty,” Lozada said.
Jose Sollano Jr., a medicine professor at the University of Santo Tomas, noted that the Filipino diet, which is high in carbohydrates and salt, and a combination of lack of physical activities may increase the risk of developing a fatty liver.
The tendency for less exercise and more eating drives people to be obese, and the basic substrate of fatty liver is obesity,” Sollano Jr. said. According to the 2024 Global Liver Health Report, about 27 million Filipinos are overweight or obese, doubling the numbers in the past two decades.
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