NAFLD Is Still Common Among Metabolically Healthy Individuals

Metabolically healthy individuals are still at risk for nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD), according to a new review.

To determine the prevalence and characteristics of NAFLD in individuals with metabolically healthy obesity, the researchers evaluated all patients who had undergone bariatric surgery with intraoperative liver biopsy from 2008 to 2015 (N = 270).

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All patients included in the analysis did not have hypertension, dyslipidemia, or prediabetes/diabetes before surgery; were an average age of 38 years; and had an average body mass index of 47 kg/m².

Overall, 96 (35.5%) patients were found to have NAFLD; 28 (10.4%) patients had alanine aminotransferase levels of more than 45 U/L, and 18 (6.7%) had asparate aminotransferase levels of more than 40 U/L.

“Even with the use of strict criteria to eliminate all patients with any metabolic problems, a significant proportion of metabolically healthy patients had unsuspected NAFLD,” the researchers concluded. “The need and clinical utility of routine screening of obese patients for fatty liver disease and the role of bariatric surgery in the management of NAFLD warrants further investigation.”

—Amanda Balbi

Reference:

Haskins IN, Chang J, Hanipah ZN, et al. Patients with clinically metabolically healthy obesity are not necessarily healthy subclinically: further support for bariatric surgery in patients without metabolic disease? 2018;14(3):342-346. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.soard.2017.11.032.