Commentary
A substantial body of literature supports that a low muscle mass, low strength, and/or muscle fatty infiltration (myosteatosis) are associated with NAFLD severity. In order to decipher the kinetics of muscle alterations in relation with liver disease progression, M. Nachit et al. (Institute of Experimental and Clinical Research, UCLouvain, Brussels, Belgium) evaluated the muscle compartment in NASH preclinical models. They developed and validated a micro‐computed tomography‐based methodology to prospectively study skeletal muscle mass and density in muscle and liver in three preclinical NAFLD/NASH rodent models.
Their data support that sarcopenia, as evidenced by a low muscle strength, but a not low muscle mass, is present in mice with fibrosing NASH, but not in those with early NASH or NAFL. In contrast, the severity of myosteatosis reflects on hepatocellular damage and inflammation during early NASH development.
