Obesity Is a Risk Factor NAFLD, Regardless of Metabolic Health

A significant number of obese patients who were otherwise metabolically healthy had unsuspected non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD), according to the findings of a recent study.

The study included 270 patients with metabolically healthy obesity who underwent bariatric surgery and intraoperative liver biopsy, which were used to determine the prevalence of NAFLD (mean age 38 years).
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Overall, 96 (35.5%) patients had NAFLD, 62 (23%) had lobular inflammation, 23 (8.5%) had hepatocyte ballooning, 22 (8.2%) had steatohepatitis, and 12 (4.4%) had liver fibrosis.

“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.”

—Melissa Weiss

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? [published online December 8, 2017]. Surg Obes Relat Dis. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.soard.2017.11.032.