1. From nonalcoholic fatty liver disease to metabolic-associated fatty liver disease: Big wave or ripple?
- Author
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Seung Up Kim, Jin-Woo Lee, Seong Hee Kang, Soung Won Jeong, and Yuri Cho
- Subjects
medicine.medical_specialty ,Disease ,Review ,Gastroenterology ,metabolic syndrome ,03 medical and health sciences ,0302 clinical medicine ,Risk Factors ,Internal medicine ,Diabetes mellitus ,Nonalcoholic fatty liver disease ,Medicine ,Humans ,lcsh:RC799-869 ,Molecular Biology ,Hepatology ,business.industry ,Fatty liver ,metabolic (dysfunction)-associated fatty liver disease ,non-alcoholic fatty liver disease ,medicine.disease ,030220 oncology & carcinogenesis ,diabetes mellitus ,Etiology ,outcome ,030211 gastroenterology & hepatology ,lcsh:Diseases of the digestive system. Gastroenterology ,Metabolic syndrome ,Abnormality ,Steatosis ,business - Abstract
There is some dissatisfaction with the term “nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD),” which overemphasizes alcohol and underemphasizes the importance of metabolic risk factors in this disease. Recently, a consensus recommended “metabolic (dysfunction)-associated fatty liver disease (MAFLD)” as a more appropriate term to describe fatty liver diseases (FLD) associated with metabolic dysfunction. During the definition change from NAFLD to MAFLD, subjects with FLD and metabolic abnormalities, together with other etiologies of liver diseases such as alcohol, virus, or medication who have been excluded from the NAFLD criteria, were added to the MAFLD criteria, while subjects with FLD but without metabolic abnormality, who have been included in the NAFLD criteria, were excluded from the MAFLD criteria. This means that there is an emphasis on the metabolic dysfunction in MAFLD which may underestimate the prognostic value of hepatic steatosis itself, whereas the MAFLD criteria might better identify subjects who are at a higher risk of hepatic or cardiovascular outcomes. However, non-metabolic risk NAFLD subjects who are excluded from the MAFLD criteria are missed from the diagnosis, and their potential risk can be the cause of future diseases. Although huge controversies remain, this review focused on summarizing recent studies that compared the clinical and prognostic characteristics between subjects with NAFLD and MAFLD.
- Published
- 2021