Abstract:

Nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) is one of the chronic liver diseases, which has a rising prevalence in recent years. Patients with NAFLD are usually asymptomatic, but it is associated with a series of metabolic diseases and may even progress to fatal end-stage liver disease. Epidemiological evidence demonstrates that NAFLD is closely related to obesity and is more common among obese individuals than those with normal body weight. Besides, many studies explore the related molecular mechanism between NAFLD and obesity, which may involve insulin resistance, increased release of free fatty acid, changes in concentrations of proinflammatory cytokines and adipocytokines. The epidemiologic characteristics and molecular mechanism about NAFLD and obesity are reviewed in this paper.

Key words: nonalcoholic fatty liver disease, obesity, epidemiology, molecular mechanism