Prevalence and Profile of Non-Alcoholic Fatty Liver Disease among Adults Undergoing Master Health Checkup, A Hospital based Cross Sectional Study

Abstract

Introduction: Non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) has emerged as a major public health problem in recent times. It is one of the neglected conditions in developing nations like India, due to scarcity of studies on the subject. Study objective was to assess the prevalence of NAFLD among patients undergoing master health checkup in a tertiary care teaching hospital and to analyze the profile of NAFLD cases. Material and materials: The study was a hospital based analytical cross-sectional study. Conducted in a tertiary care teaching hospital in south India. People attending the master health checkup in the study setting from June 2015 to July 2018 were included. Chi square test was used to test statistical significance. Results: A total of 818 patients were included, out of whom 130(15.89%) had NAFLD. The proportion of grade 1, 2 and 3 fatty liver was 79.23%, 13.84% and 6.92% respectively. The difference in waist circumference and HDL values were statistically significant between male & female (P value <0.001 and 0.007 respectively). No other components of Metabolic syndrome had shown statistically significant difference between males and females. The difference in grade of NAFLD across the age group is found to be significant with a P-value of 0.035. Grade of NAFLD was not associated with any other diet or lifestyle related parameters. Conclusions: Significant proportion of healthy subjects are affected by NAFLD, some of them with severe grades, with key gender differences in some of the factors associated with NAFLD. Patients and clinicians needs to be sensitized regarding NAFLD.

Gut-Liver Axis Modulation: A Potential Role of Probiotics and Omega-3 Fatty Acids in Management of NAFLD

“…However, based on the available data, the prevalence of NAFLD varies from 9% in rural areas to 32% in urban populations. This incidence is reported to be the lowest in western India (44.1%) compared to the highest prevalence in northern states (72.4%) [3]. The first stage that signifies NA-FLD is hepatic steatosis, predicted when the fat content in liver is elevated more than 5% of the liver volume [1].…”