How to reduce your fatty liver

One in three adults in industrialized nations already has it: fatty liver. You hardly notice it at first because the liver rarely hurts. The causes are not new: an unhealthy diet, too many carbohydrates, and too little exercise. The good news, however, is that with suitable measures, you can reduce your fatty liver.

More and more people have fatty liver

Fatty liver disease (steatosis hepatis) is the most common liver disease worldwide. Non-alcoholic fatty liver disease alone affects a quarter of the world’s population (1).

What is fatty liver?

Fatty liver is defined as at least 10 percent of the liver’s total weight being made up of fat. For a long time, it was thought that such fat deposits in the liver were primarily the result of alcohol abuse.

There is now non-alcoholic fatty liver disease, which is much more common than the alcoholic form.

Alcohol is not the only thing that damages the liver. An unhealthy diet (high in sugar and fat), obesity and lack of exercise also increase the risk of fatty liver disease. This is why we speak of non-alcoholic fatty liver disease or, more recently, metabolically associated fatty liver disease.

Who can have fatty liver disease?

In the group of overweight people and type 2 diabetics alone, 90 percent of patients have fatty liver disease. But slim people or those who are only slightly overweight can also be affected – most of them without knowing it. Because those affected initially only feel mild, non-specific symptoms, if any at all.

Even children are increasingly suffering from fatty liver disease. Weight and nutrition also play a major role in children. Children who were not breastfed have a higher risk of fatty liver disease later in life than children who were breastfed.

Symptoms of fatty liver

At first, you don’t notice any fat deposits in the liver. Only as the organ grows in size can the following symptoms occur, especially when inflammatory processes develop in the fatty liver. This is then referred to as NASH (steatohepatitis), inflamed fatty liver:

  1. feeling of pressure in the right upper abdomen
  2. tiredness and fatigue
  3. poor appetite
  4. flatulence, nausea and feeling of fullness

Diagnosis of fatty liver

Fatty liver disease is usually discovered as an incidental finding during routine examinations – for example, due to abnormal liver values ​​in the blood:

  1. Gamma-glutamyltransferase (GGT)
  2. Alanine aminotransferase (ALT)
  3. Aspartate aminotransferase (AST)

If these values ​​increase, this can also indicate other problems. Therefore, the upper abdomen is examined to check the liver and, if necessary, an MRI or ultrasound is performed. If necessary, a so-called elastography of the liver can also be carried out. This can determine how hardened the liver has become and how much damage it may have suffered. Your doctor will explain the details to you.

Consequences of fatty liver

Fatty liver disease can lead to other diseases:

Hepatitis, liver fibrosis, cirrhosis and liver cancer

If fatty liver disease exists, 5 to 20 percent of those affected may develop liver inflammation (fatty liver inflammation/steatohepatitis). This in turn can lead to liver fibrosis (changes in the connective tissue of the liver with loss of function), liver cirrhosis (in 10 percent of those affected) or even liver cancer.

At the International Liver Congress 2019 in Vienna, it was reported (31) that in 11 percent of fatty liver hepatitis patients, fatty liver disease had progressed to severe liver disease, such as liver cancer or liver cirrhosis, within 10 years of diagnosis.

Up to 27 percent of patients with fatty liver disease and liver cirrhosis even developed decompensated liver cirrhosis during this period. This is a significant deterioration in liver function, which can lead to the following complications:

  1. ascites (accumulation of fluid in the abdominal cavity)
  2. Brain dysfunction (because the liver can no longer detoxify properly)
  3. Esophageal variceal bleeding (life-threatening bleeding from varicose veins in the esophagus as a result of high blood pressure in the hepatic portal vein)
  4. Jaundice (jaundice because the liver cannot absorb or break down the bilirubin produced during the breakdown of blood cells and this yellow substance is now deposited in the mucous membranes and skin, causing a yellow coloration)

If the condition of the liver deteriorates to such an extent, the risk of death also increases. After one year, 2.1 percent of patients with steatohepatitis had died, 4.6 percent of patients with liver cirrhosis and 19.1 percent of patients with decompensated liver cirrhosis. Over the course of seven years, more than half of the liver cirrhosis patients had died.

Cardiovascular diseases and diabetes

Much more common, however, are cardiovascular disease and type 2 diabetes as typical secondary diseases of a fatty liver, although in the case of diabetes, it is not known exactly which came first – the fatty liver or the insulin resistance – or whether both develop in parallel.

In patients with fatty liver disease, the coronary arteries are usually more calcified than in people with a healthy liver, so they have an increased risk of severe arteriosclerosis and thus also a higher risk of heart attack and stroke.

Often, it is not only the liver that is fatty, but also the pancreas, which also explains the frequent diabetes that follows (16).

When fats accumulate in the insulin-producing beta cells of the pancreas, their functionality deteriorates (17).

Pancreatic cancer

In addition, non-alcoholic fatty liver disease was observed more frequently in people suffering from pancreatic cancer than in healthy individuals (18).

If you reduce your fatty liver, you will also reduce your risk of this particularly aggressive form of cancer!

Your fatty liver is reversible!

Fortunately, fatty liver disease is reversible, meaning it can go back to normal with the right treatment. However, “treatment” here does not mean medication (there are no medications to treat fatty deposits in the liver), but rather changes in lifestyle and diet.

This is very good news, as it means that you can start your own personal anti-fatty liver therapy right now! You don’t need a prescription, no complicated doctor’s visits, no time-consuming specialist appointments – none of that!

Exception: If you simply cannot lose weight and abandon your liver-harming eating and lifestyle habits, discuss with your doctor whether you are eligible for cognitive behavioral therapy or an obesity treatment (19).

An important reason for tackling fatty liver disease is the fact that affected patients cause enormous costs for our health care system due to the aforementioned secondary diseases (26 percent more (than people without fatty liver disease) over the course of 5 years) (24).

How to Reduce Your Fatty Liver

Fatty liver disease is one of the few diseases where the causes of fatty liver are clearly known (overweight, poor diet (too fatty, too sweet, too much), alcohol, lack of exercise, lack of sleep, stress/too much work) (13). The therapy therefore “quite simply” consists in eliminating these causes:

  1. Lose weight
  2. Healthy eating
  3. Not drinking alcohol
  4. Move
  5. Make sure you get enough sleep
  6. Optimize stress management
  7. Choose targeted nutritional supplements: Since fatty liver disease means oxidative stress, is associated with latent inflammatory processes and is often accompanied by a disturbance of the intestinal flora, nutritional supplements can be used to support the condition; they have an antioxidant and anti-inflammatory effect and restore the intestinal flora.

Medications can lead to fat deposits in the liver

However, many medications can also damage the liver and stimulate processes in the liver that lead to excessive fat storage, such as amiodarone (for cardiac arrhythmias), methotrexate (for rheumatism) and corticosteroids (cortisone for chronic inflammatory diseases).

Therefore, if you are taking medication and are diagnosed with fatty liver disease, be sure to discuss this possible cause with your doctor so that your medications can be carefully reviewed and you may be able to swap them for others or even stop taking some of them.

Measures against fatty liver

In most cases, however, fatty liver disease is the result of the above points, so you can reduce your fatty liver with the following measures. If you already have chronic illnesses, discuss your plans with your doctor, as mentioned.

1. Reduce excess weight

Since excess weight is the main cause of fatty liver disease in most cases, it goes without saying that this must be reduced first. However, studies have shown that simply changing the composition of the diet (without reducing calories) can improve the fatty liver problem – see below under “4. What is the best diet for fatty liver?”.

Nevertheless, if you are significantly overweight, weight loss should also be a goal of therapy. All of the measures mentioned in this article will help you achieve this goal.

If you need more tips on how to lose weight, you can find them in the previous link. However, often even small changes in eating habits can help, such as switching from unhealthy snacks to healthy snacks:

Swap high-calorie snacks for healthy snacks

Many people become overweight because they constantly snack. Most of the time, they sweeten their breaks with snacks that are high in fat and sugar. In a study with 36 normal-weight men, Dutch researchers found that these high-fat and high-sugar snacks in particular significantly increase the risk of fatty liver disease.

Isolated and industrially produced fructose (fruit sugar), which has long been considered the ideal sweetener because it does not affect blood sugar levels excessively, can lead to fatty liver disease particularly quickly. Fructose is found in many sweets, but also in many soft drinks.

In the above study, the frequent consumption of high-calorie unhealthy snacks dramatically worsened the participants’ liver values ​​– and this within just 6 weeks.

To protect your liver, not only snack less, but also reduce overall sugary foods and, of course, those with a lot of fat, although healthy, high-fat snacks such as almonds can certainly be part of your diet – according to a study from June 2020.

Participants in this study snacked on either almonds (roasted) or mini muffins (20 percent of their calorie intake) for 6 weeks. Although liver fat levels did not decrease in the almond group, LDL cholesterol did decrease and vascular health improved (21), which is a step in the right direction simply by choosing a healthy snack.

2. Fruits do not lead to fatty liver

It is often claimed that fruits can also lead to fatty liver disease. After all, fruits also contain fruit sugar, i.e. fructose – and fructose is considered to be a real driver for the formation of too much fat in the liver. However, this only applies to industrially produced fructose, which is contained in large quantities in sweets and lemonades (or of course if you drink liters of fruit juice every day and/or eat kilos of fruit.

However, in normal quantities (300 – 400 g per day), fruits even help prevent fatty liver disease – as various studies show (e.g. if you eat a fruit salad instead of conventional sweets).

For example, a 2020 Korean study of 52,280 participants showed that high fruit consumption (380 g/day) reduced the risk of non-alcoholic fatty liver disease by about 23 percent (compared to 60 g/day for those who ate little fruit). High fruit AND vegetable consumption reduced the risk of fatty liver disease only slightly more (by 25 – 26 percent) (4).

A Japanese study from 2019, which appeared in the renowned journal Nutrition , also states that you do not have to limit your fruit consumption if you want to protect yourself from fatty liver disease. It was found that the more fruit the approximately 2500 participants consumed, the lower their risk not only of being overweight but also of fatty liver disease (5) – in men and women alike.

There is even a study that showed that not only dried fruit, which is even sweeter and is considered a fructose bomb, poses a risk to the liver, but actually helps to break it down (23) – if you eat it, instead of other snacks (low-fat yogurt, crackers, bread with low-fat cheese). In the study mentioned, the participants – all of whom had fatty liver disease – consumed 36 g of currants daily.

The beneficial effect of dried fruits is due to their content of anti-inflammatory and antioxidant plant substances, such as quercetin, chrysin, vanillic acid, ferulic acid, etc. Dried fruits are also foods with only a medium glycemic load (a value that indicates the influence on blood sugar levels – details in the previous link), so they help regulate insulin and blood sugar levels.

Special case of oranges

However, you may need to be more cautious with oranges, especially if you already have fatty liver disease. A study of 27,200 participants from April 2019 found that those who ate oranges more often had a higher risk of fatty liver disease (6). They were actually raw oranges, not sweetened orange nectar or any other industrially processed orange juice.

Oranges are also very healthy, as their secondary plant substances (flavonoids) and vitamins can even improve liver health. However, if you eat a lot of oranges, they seem to promote the formation of fat deposits in the liver (the risk then increases by 17 percent). “High orange consumption” means 7 portions or more per week. However, those who only ate oranges 1 to 6 times per week did not have a significantly increased risk.

However, the orange lovers in this study also consumed more calories overall, so this aspect could also have promoted the development of fatty liver. It could also be that the oranges were pressed into juice at home, which then contains less fiber, which can prevent fatty liver disease.

Blood oranges protect against fat storage in the liver

It could also make a difference which type of orange is eaten. In mice that were fed a high-fat diet, blood orange juice protected the liver from fatty liver disease.

Mice that were given only water instead of blood orange juice not only developed fatty livers, but also insulin resistance, obesity and high blood fat levels. All of these values ​​were significantly more moderate in the blood orange mice. Blood oranges are particularly rich in anthocyanins.

Anthocyanins, in turn, are plant substances with antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, anti-cancer and liver-protective effects.

In previous studies, anthocyanins – which are found in all blue or red berries, fruits and vegetables – had extremely beneficial effects on metabolism. They prevented obesity and lipid metabolism disorders and reduced the inflammatory reactions of abdominal fat (7).

So if you like eating oranges, then you should choose blood oranges. But since they are only available for a short time of the year, you could also combine your oranges with blueberries or other dark berries that contain a lot of anthocyanins, and thus get the valuable plant substances without having to do without oranges.

3. These vegetables break down the fat in the liver

Certain types of vegetables contain a substance that can break down fat in the liver. These are indole compounds, which are particularly found in vegetables from the cruciferous family, such as broccoli, radishes, cress, arugula and all types of cabbage. Indoles are considered anti-inflammatory and anti-cancer. Since a study from 2020 , they have also been shown to inhibit fatty liver disease. We present the study here: This vegetable substance helps fight fatty liver disease

Discover the culinary diversity of brassica vegetables. In our Library we have hundreds of liver-friendly and plant-based recipes ready for you. Simply enter broccoli, kohlrabi, white cabbage, Brussels sprouts or all the other types of cabbage in our search button.

The right diet for fatty liver

There are various diets that can help reduce fatty liver.

Plant-based/vegan diet

A plant-based or vegan diet is usually high in fiber, low in sugar and fat and therefore often not only corrects fatty liver disease, but also the other associated problems or those problems that led to fat storage in the liver in the first place, such as obesity, lipid metabolism disorders and type 2 diabetes.

A diet that contains a lot of animal protein is also considered to be a contributing factor to too much fat in the liver (meat promotes fatty liver disease). If you eat a plant-based diet from now on, you will automatically reduce this additional risk factor. This is because a plant-based diet covers your protein needs primarily with plant-based protein sources , which also include soy products. Soy products also contribute to the breakdown of fatty liver.

Plant-based foods also contain – as the two examples above show (anthocyanins from blood oranges and indoles from vegetables) – certain plant substances that help to break down fat in the fatty liver through various mechanisms. In addition to the indoles and anthocyanins mentioned, these plant substances also include resveratrol (from grapes), quercetin from onions, capers and apples (see point 6) and curcumin from turmeric (see point 5).

These substances reduce inflammation and oxidative stress in the fatty liver, promote the cell’s self-cleaning process (autophagocytosis) and have a positive effect on the intestinal flora (8). The intestinal flora in particular is extremely important for a healthy liver, as we explain below in point 7. This is because some intestinal bacteria can produce alcohol and thus cause alcoholic fatty liver disease even in absolute abstainers.

Mediterranean diet

A randomized crossover study from 2013 showed that the Mediterranean diet is more effective for fatty liver disease than the usual low-fat, high-carbohydrate diet (22) that is officially recommended for people with cardiovascular disease (e.g. by the American Heart Association ). Crossover means that each of the participants tested both diets, first the Mediterranean diet for 6 weeks and then the low-fat diet for 6 weeks after a 6-week break.

  1. Mediterranean diet: 40 percent of daily calories in the form of fat (monounsaturated fatty acids from olive oil and omega-3 fatty acids from plant sources or seafood), 40 percent carbohydrates and 20 percent proteins.
  2. Low-fat diet: 30 percent fat (preferably no saturated fatty acids (butter, cream, cheese, sausage, meat). However, too many omega-6 fatty acids from vegetable oils (sunflower oil, corn oil) are usually consumed), 50 percent carbohydrates and 20 percent proteins.

With the Mediterranean diet, the values ​​that indicated fatty liver disease decreased noticeably. Insulin sensitivity also increased, which means that the risk of diabetes decreased – all of this without any attempt to lose weight, which means that the composition of the diet alone has an enormous influence on the liver. The researchers write:

“The Mediterranean diet is an inexpensive and side-effect-free therapy that leads to an improvement in overall health, thus not only reducing the risk of chronic liver disease, but also the risk of diabetes and cardiovascular disease. The Mediterranean diet should therefore form the basis of fatty liver therapy in the future.”

Ketogenic diet

The ketogenic diet has an even higher fat content , namely around 75 percent of daily calories. Carbohydrates only make up around 5 percent. Proteins around 20 percent. Nevertheless, the ketogenic diet can help to reduce fatty liver.

This shows that it is not necessarily the fat content of the diet that matters, but rather the quality of the fats consumed, that plenty of vegetables are eaten, that no more calories are eaten than needed and that one does not eat both in large quantities at the same time: fat AND carbohydrates.

Which dietary supplements support the breakdown

Anti-inflammatory agents can help to reduce the chronic inflammation that often occurs with fatty liver disease. In addition, certain vitamins and trace elements can support the regeneration and detoxification of the liver. However, it is important to see dietary supplements as part of a holistic approach that also includes a balanced diet and a healthy lifestyle.

Curcumin can reduce fatty liver

A randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled study from 2016 showed how well taking the highly effective plant substance curcumin (from turmeric) can reduce fatty liver. The patients (all with fatty liver disease) took a daily curcumin supplement (500 mg) containing 70 mg of pure curcumin or a placebo preparation for 8 weeks. In the curcumin group, the fat content of the liver decreased by 78.9 percent, and in the placebo group by 27.5 percent.

There were also other significant changes in the curcumin group (compared to the placebo group). BMI decreased and cholesterol, blood sugar and liver function improved (9).

The dose of 70 mg curcumin is unusually low. Most people take 1500 to 2000 mg curcumin daily – as in another study published in 2019 (10).

Use golden milk for your health too.

In this study, the subjects took 500 mg three times a day for 12 weeks or a placebo after meals. However, the participants in both groups were also asked to change their diet, consume less cholesterol, eat more fiber and exercise for 30 minutes three times a week.

Here, too, liver health improved significantly. The connective tissue changes (liver fibrosis) regressed, inflammation levels decreased and liver fat was noticeably reduced. These improvements were seen in both groups, which means that a lifestyle change is essential for a fatty liver and cannot be replaced by one capsule or another, but can certainly be accompanied by it – as a review of four randomized placebo-controlled curcumin liver studies published up to 2017 found.

These studies showed a significant improvement in liver values ​​with doses of 1000 mg or more of curcumin per day over a period of 8 weeks (11).

Quercetin and OPC to reduce fatty liver

If you have other nutritional supplements with antioxidant and anti-inflammatory plant substances at home, you can also use these to combat fatty liver disease, as latent inflammation and oxidative stress always play a major role here. All measures that counteract this will help you to reduce your fatty liver.

One of these plant substances is quercetin (500 mg daily), for which only animal and cell studies are available so far, but they show that quercetin has a hepatoprotective (liver-protecting) effect and protects the liver from fat accumulation (12).

The well-known OPC (oligomeric proanthocyanidins) could also be used as an adjunct. In initial animal studies, OPC improved alcohol-related lipid metabolism disorders, reduced fat storage in the liver (14), improved liver values, reduced inflammation and increased the level of the body’s own antioxidants in the liver (SOD) .

If you do not already have OPC at home, make sure you buy a product with sufficient dosage.

Probiotics help reduce fatty liver

Probiotics are a mixture of certain bacterial strains that are also found in the healthy human intestine, where they form the so-called intestinal flora and from here actively help to maintain the health of the respective person .

Very often, however, the intestinal flora is massively disturbed as a result of an unhealthy diet and lifestyle (too much sugar, too much fat, too much alcohol, too little exercise, too many medications, too much stress), which can lead to a wide variety of diseases and symptoms – fatty liver disease is one of them.

If the intestinal flora is rebuilt with high-quality probiotics and a change in diet is made at the same time, then these measures contribute significantly to both the prevention of fatty liver disease and the regeneration of the liver. Many other chronic diseases naturally also benefit from this.

How Probiotics Fight Fatty Liver

Scientists at the Universidad de Granada have now specifically investigated the effect of probiotics on fatty liver disease using an animal model. The test subjects (rats) took a probiotic made from the following bacterial strains for thirty days: Lactobacillus paracaseiBifidobacterium breve and Lactobacillus rhamnosus. It was found that the probiotics were not only able to significantly reduce the amount of fat stored in the liver, but also that the inflammation levels in the blood decreased at the same time.

Probiotics affect liver health in at least three ways

Probiotics counteract fatty liver as follows:

  1. The intestine and the liver are directly connected to each other via blood vessels. A disturbed intestinal flora and thus a disturbed intestinal environment can also affect the liver and lead to functional disorders there.
  2. An unhealthy composition of the intestinal flora (dysbiosis) promotes subtle chronic inflammatory processes in the body. These, in turn, weaken the entire organism and can contribute to the development of a wide variety of diseases, including in the liver.
  3. The intestinal flora regulates a large part of digestion. Even the formation and excretion of bile acids is activated by the intestinal flora. The better the bile acid balance functions, the less fat is stored in the liver.

In our article Building up the intestinal flora you will learn how to use probiotics correctly.

Please note that probiotic products from the supermarket (especially dairy products) are often not suitable for restoring the intestinal flora – either they contain too little variety of probiotic strains or too low a total number of bacteria. It is better to integrate the probiotic capsule product linked above and/or the probiotic foods presented in the link below into your diet.

Green tea and its effect on fatty liver disease

In July 2021, a study was published which stated that a great deal of oxidative stress is always observed in fatty liver disease. Reducing this oxidative stress with antioxidants is therefore a promising approach in the treatment of non-alcoholic fatty liver disease.

Numerous randomized clinical trials, reviews and meta-analyses have shown that green tea, or rather the most important antioxidant in green tea – EGCG – protects against the development or further development of non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (15). Its antioxidant effect alleviates oxidative stress, inflammation, fibrosis and the formation of tumors.

Vitamin D for fatty liver disease

Vitamin D is an important vitamin whose levels should be checked in all chronic conditions. Many people with chronic diseases unknowingly suffer from vitamin D deficiency. Fatty liver patients also have a higher vitamin D deficiency than people with healthy livers (20).

Vitamin D has so many effects on the metabolism and the liver that one cannot afford a vitamin D deficiency, especially if one has fatty liver disease (25):

  1. Vitamin D has anti-inflammatory and antioxidant effects,
  2. reduces the formation of new fat in the liver (even with a high-fat diet),
  3. reduces the harmful oxidation of fatty acids,
  4. inhibits the formation of fibrotic tissue in the liver, thus slowing the progression of fat-related liver damage.
  5. has a very positive effect on the intestinal flora (as at least 10 studies show) – and a healthy intestinal flora is essential for the liver,
  6. supports weight loss in the case of overweight, because vitamin D deficiency promotes obesity.

Whether the vitamin D deficiency is the cause of the diseased liver or is the result of excessive fat deposits in the liver is essentially secondary, since the further procedure always remains the same:

You have your vitamin D level determined and take the appropriate vitamin D dose based on the result.

Milk thistle helps reduce fatty liver

Milk thistle is probably the best-known medicinal plant for the liver. As a randomized placebo-controlled study from May 2022 shows, it can also be used for fatty liver disease. Participants were very overweight fatty liver patients with an average BMI of 47, which would correspond to 155 kg for a man 180 cm tall. For 8 weeks, the participants took a milk thistle preparation containing 140 mg of silymarin four times a day, i.e. a total of 560 mg of silymarin daily, or a placebo preparation four times a day. Both groups also implemented further measures (diet, lifestyle).

After this short period of time, liver values ​​improved significantly without any side effects – and more so in the milk thistle group. A greater weight loss was also observed in this group.

As early as 2012, Loguercio et al. had found in a double-blind study with 180 patients that the administration of 188 mg silybin (part of the silymarin complex), 180 mg vitamin E and 388 mg phosphatidylcholine (lecithin) over a period of 12 months normalized liver values ​​(GOT and GPT), significantly reduced another liver value (GGT) and also significantly reduced fatty liver disease (26).

Exercise reduces fatty liver

Let’s assume you are overweight, have a suboptimal diet and therefore have a fatty liver, but you don’t want to lose weight or change your diet. But you would still like to get rid of the fatty liver. No problem! We can help you! All you have to do is do HIIT on the ergometer at least three, preferably four times a week for half an hour each – according to two studies from 2009 and 2018.

HIIT stands for High Intensity Interval Training. Such training could look like this: After a 3-minute warm-up (cycling at low resistance), you cycle for 5 cycles of 2 to 4 minutes each at high intensity or with high resistance. Between the high-intensity phases, you cycle for 3 minutes with moderate resistance.

Depending on your starting condition, you start with cycles of 2 minutes at high intensity, with these 2 minutes being extended by 5 seconds in each training session (i.e. by 10 seconds per week), so that in the 12th week you reach cycles of 4 minutes. Of course, you can also start with more demanding training – depending on your personal constitution and condition.

In the 2009 study (which lasted only 4 weeks), the participants’ abdominal fat decreased significantly (by 12 percent). Liver fat decreased by 21 percent, and free fatty acids in the blood also decreased by 14 percent (29). Subcutaneous fat and weight did not change.

The 2018 study even examined (also for 4 weeks) whether it might be possible to do normal endurance training instead of HIIT. However, it was found that the participants who did the endurance training were ultimately not able to lose as much liver fat (only 20 percent, which is of course still good). However, the HIIT group was able to reduce fatty liver by an average of 37 percent (30).

Fatty liver can be reduced or at least improved even if you don’t lose weight or change your diet, but do regular exercise. Of course, it is impossible to say in individual cases whether your fatty liver will completely disappear with exercise alone and it depends on many factors. It would therefore be more promising if you took other measures.

If you are overweight or have a pre-existing medical condition, you should always complete the above training under the supervision of a sports doctor or trainer.

Reduce fatty liver: The program

If you want to reduce your fatty liver, your program could look like this:

  1. Change your diet to a plant-based diet, such as a vegan or Mediterranean diet with plenty of vegetables (especially brassicas), healthy fats and – when necessary – healthy snacks. When it comes to fruit, look for varieties that contain anthocyanins, such as blood oranges and berries. Dried fruit (such as currants) and almonds can complement your diet.
  2. Make sure you exercise regularly! This alone contributes to the breakdown of fat in the liver (27)
  3. Have your vitamin D levels checked and take vitamin D if necessary.
  4. Take care of your intestinal flora – with probiotics and probiotic foods.
  5. Choose 1 to 2 supplements from the following: OPC, quercetin, green tea extract and curcumin.
  6. Take milk thistle and other liver supporting herbs.

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