Our center city personal trainers focus on your lifelong journey to health. We know that better health leads to a longer, more fulfilling life with fewer physical and mental challenges.

And a big part of better health is maintaining your weight. We know that it’s hard. In fact, most American adults are overweight (a Body Mass Index of greater than 25 and less than 30), and 42% are obese (Body Mass Index of 30 or more). Both conditions lead to an increased likelihood of health problems – as the NIH explains.

Here’s a partial list of weight-related conditions pulled together by our center city personal trainers:

  • Type 2 diabetes – a life-threatening condition
  • High cholesterol and triglycerides – a leading cause of heart attacks, high blood pressure, and strokes
  • Osteoarthritis – a painful condition that limits mobility
  • Cancers – a range of them from minor to mortal
  • Fatty liver disease – that leads to liver failure

As the Covid pandemic has continued, researchers have found (read the article here) that the Covid virus (like other viruses) hides in the visceral fat cells surrounding our internal organs and causes constant low-grade inflammation. As the virus emerges, it overstimulates macrophages (white blood cells that kill bad microorganisms). This overreaction creates extreme inflammation that overwhelms our immune system and causes it to crash. These “Cytokine Storms” are often fatal. The CDC links Covid seriousness and mortality to your weight because:

Your risk of destructive immune system response is proportional to your weight.

When you’re heavier, the virus has more opportunity to multiply and lurk in your fat cells. And, when you have more of the virus in your system, you’re more likely to get sick.

Similarly, overweight and obese people develop fatty liver disease more often than people in normal weight ranges. 25% of American adults have the disease. The cause is obesity. And there isn’t medical treatment.

Fatty liver disease creates excess fat around the liver, which causes inflammation. The body makes scar tissue to counter the inflammation that impairs liver functions. Cirrhosis – chronic liver scarring leading to liver failure – is the result.

When a person loses weight, they lose it everywhere. So, the inflammation around the liver can subside, the scar tissue can reverse, and the liver can function more effectively.

Our center city personal trainers felt surprised by how much weight loss can help improve fatty liver disease after reading about a new study in The New York Times.

The study at the Cleveland Clinic followed about 1,100 patients who had aggressive fatty liver disease for over a decade. First, they found that in the group of 650 patients who had bariatric surgery for weight loss, the likelihood of dying from advanced liver disease, liver cancer, or related causes decreased by 90%.

Only five bariatric surgery recipients (less than 1%) developed serious liver disease. This number compares to 40 of the 508 patients (about 8%) who didn’t have the surgery.

And of the patients who had the surgery were 70% less like to have a cardiac event, stroke, heart failure, or to die of a cardiac event for a decade than the other patients.

Weight loss can be the key to better heart and liver health.

Because there seems to be a direct link to maintaining a normal weight and reducing the risk of nonalcoholic fatty liver disease. 25% of American adults are overweight, and 75% develop fatty liver disease. Because there aren’t any symptoms, most people don’t know they have it. But 20% to 25% of them will get nonalcoholic steatohepatitis (known as NASH). This aggressive form of the disease leads to liver fibrosis. And 20% of those patients develop cirrhosis. A liver transplant is the only cure.

We’re not advocating for bariatric surgery. It has many possible complications and side effects. We suggest doing everything possible to maintain a healthy weight that falls well below obesity.

As always, our center city personal trainers are ready to help you begin or continue your lifelong journey to health. You can contact us here.

For a few more easy suggestions to improve your health, check out our blog about 48 Words for a Healthy Life.