Nonalcoholic Steatohepatitis Social Network
Is The Clinical Impact Of Nonalcoholic Fatty Liver Disease (NAFLD) The Y2K Of Hepatology ?
Is the clinical impact of nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) the Y2K of our specialty? Have we fashioned a mountain from a molehill of end-stage liver disease? The answer merits some consideration.
Ian Wanless’s landmark cross-sectional study reported convincingly that the overall prevalence of NASH in
adults in North America is 18.5% in obese and 2.7% in nonobese individuals.1 Of obese individuals
found to have NASH at autopsy, about one in seven had bridging fibrosis or cirrhosis.
Based on current prevalences of obesity and type 2 diabetes, NAFLD can conservatively
be estimated to affect more than 30 million people in the United States.2-8 NAFLD has thus come to
be regarded as a potentially important public health issue. The scale of the problem may be worsening in parallel with the relentless increases in the prevalence and severity of obesity in the United States and globally.
Our communal interest in NAFLD is reflected in the number of publications that have appeared in the medical
literature .A simple query of PubMed using the subject search terms “NAFLD” or “NASH” reveals a logarithmic
increase in the number of NAFLD-related articles in the last 10 years.
Source:
MICHAEL CHARLTON, M.D.
Department of Gastroenterology and Hepatology
Mayo Clinic Transplant Center
Mayo Clinic
Rochester, MN
Hepatology
Ian Wanless’s landmark cross-sectional study reported convincingly that the overall prevalence of NASH in
adults in North America is 18.5% in obese and 2.7% in nonobese individuals.1 Of obese individuals
found to have NASH at autopsy, about one in seven had bridging fibrosis or cirrhosis.
Based on current prevalences of obesity and type 2 diabetes, NAFLD can conservatively
be estimated to affect more than 30 million people in the United States.2-8 NAFLD has thus come to
be regarded as a potentially important public health issue. The scale of the problem may be worsening in parallel with the relentless increases in the prevalence and severity of obesity in the United States and globally.
Our communal interest in NAFLD is reflected in the number of publications that have appeared in the medical
literature .A simple query of PubMed using the subject search terms “NAFLD” or “NASH” reveals a logarithmic
increase in the number of NAFLD-related articles in the last 10 years.
Source:
MICHAEL CHARLTON, M.D.
Department of Gastroenterology and Hepatology
Mayo Clinic Transplant Center
Mayo Clinic
Rochester, MN
Hepatology
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