Doesn’t it feel great when you can fit into a size 12 dress again and the weighing scale assures you that your Body Mass Index is now perfect? But body fat is not always what is visible. You can poke your stomach and feel very little of that flabby softness which we associate with a Santa-claus-belly, but that does not mean there is no fat there. Various studies estimate that roughly 10% of human fat lies beneath the firm abdominal wall. This fat is called visceral or intra-abdominal fat found in the spaces around your organs.

So why should you care about this little bit of hidden fat? Research has shown that fat cells, especially visceral fat cells, are not just floating about inside of you but are biologically active. Some even equate a fat cell to an endocrine organ (the ones which secrete hormones to control various bodily functions). Visceral fat also makes more cytokines (remember all the hype around ‘cytokine storms’ from the Covid-19 years?). This fat already sounds bad for you. But it is all the more dangerous when it accumulates in your liver—the main organ responsible for digesting fat. But since fat can be reduced and a fatty liver reversed back to its normal state, all you need to do is hit the gym, and everything should be hunk-dory again, right?

In this episode, Dr SK Sarin, director of the Institute of Liver and Biliary Sciences and president of the National Academy of Medical Sciences, takes us into the highly misunderstood world of the human liver. He explains the multi-faceted importance of this single organ in ensuring a good quality of life. Unlike most health conditions, a fatty liver is not detectable through a simple blood test, and Dr Sarin gives a simple guide for on-time diagnosis. And even though cases of fatty liver disease are increasing at a worrying pace in India, particularly amongst children, this is a conversation that doesn’t aim to make you afraid. Instead, Dr Sarin’s solutions for health will do the opposite—empower you to make informed choices about your well-being.

Tune in to find out how many diseases a malfunctioning liver can cause, what can be done to keep visceral fat from building up, and how the country’s top liver specialist looks after his health!

Produced by Anna Priyadarshini

Sound mix by Sachin Dwivedi