NASH covers a wide spectrum of disease severity and NAFLD is increasingly common worldwide ☂ and has become the principal cause of chronic liver disease.
Non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) is estimated to affect 38% of adults worldwide, a statistic which is expected to increase with the rise of type 2 diabetes and obesity.
The term metabolic dysfunction-associated steatotic liver disease (MASLD) has recently been proposed as an alternative to non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD)’s exclusionary nomenclature.
Over the past few decades, non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) has become a growing problem, alongside the increasing rates of obesity and type 2 diabetes.
Cardiometabolic syndrome (CMS) involves a complex interplay of many issues, involving obesity, metabolic dysregulation, cardiovascular disease, insulin resistance and more. This condition extends to clinical implications including non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) as well as cancer and sleep apnoea.
Liver-related events contribute to a small proportion of mortality within the collective cohort of patients with non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD).
Despite ample preclinical evidence of numerous compounds’ efficacy and over 15 years of clinical trials, no pharmacotherapy has yet been approved to treat non-alcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH)
Nonalcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH), the progressive form of nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD), has seen a consistent rise in prevalence in recent years owing to the global epidemics of obesity and type 2 diabetes (T2D)
In 2020, a group of international experts proposed that non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) be renamed to metabolic dysfunction-associated fatty liver disease (MAFLD).
The multinational liver societies introduce a non-stigmatizing and affirming nomenclature for "Fatty" liver diseases, striving for a global consensus to advance research, funding, and patient care.
Disease awareness, patient stratification, diagnosis, and access to care are all helped or hindered by a pathology’s nomenclature. Indeed, the language used to name and identify a disease has the power to create or intensify social stigma, marginalise subsets of a patient population, and perpetuate health inequalities.
The rising healthcare costs of NASH highlight the need for early intervention. Higher FIB-4 scores correlate with increased healthcare expenses. Early-stage intervention can reduce the burden on patients and the healthcare system.
Fatty liver disease can be caused by many different autosomal recessive diseases. One includes Wilson’s disease, a condition which leads to abnormal copper accumulation in multiple organs. Cirrhosis is common in up to 30% of cases, as well as steatosis and steatohepatitis. Cystic fibrosis is another example, where steatosis is common and liver disease occurs in 0.1-3.6% of patients. Furthermore, alpha-1-antitrypsin deficiency and lysosomal acid lipase deficiency have been linked to steatosis accumulation, although have little research into their pathogenesis.