MANILA - President Gloria Arroyo remains healthy but needs to trim down, her doctors said yesterday as the government moved to quash rumors the leader was suffering from a liver ailment.

Arroyo was taken to the St. Luke's Medical Center in Quezon City Saturday for a "routine executive medical check up" and results showed she was fit, her physician Juliet Gopez-Cervantes said in a medical bulletin.

Gopez-Cervantes said Arroyo had completed all her "diagnostic procedures, and her workups were all unremarkable."

However, she said Arroyo, 59, needed to lose about four kilograms to reach her ideal weight of 50 kilograms, at her height of four feet 11 inches.

The president was advised to do more exercise and reduce her intake of carbohydrates and fats, she said.

The president was cleared for release yesterday afternoon but decided to stay for another night at St. Luke's Medical Center to rest and to accompany her husband, First Gentleman Miguel Arroyo, who was staying one more night for "additional tests."

They are both scheduled to check out this morning.

Rumors of her poor health centered around a possible liver ailment after her third trip to the hospital this year. In July she was confined with flu, followed by a bout with diarrhea in September.*AFP

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