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INCIDENCE, PREVALENCE, AND NATURAL HISTORY
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Nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) is the most common chronic liver disease in many parts of the world, including the United States. Population-based abdominal imaging studies have demonstrated fatty liver in at least 25% of American adults. Because the vast majority of these subjects deny hazardous levels of alcohol consumption (defined as greater than one drink per day in women or two drinks per day in men), they are considered to have NAFLD. NAFLD is strongly associated with overweight/obesity and insulin resistance. However, it can also occur in lean individuals and is particularly common in those with a paucity of adipose depots (i.e., lipodystrophy). Ethnic/racial factors also appear to influence liver fat accumulation; the documented prevalence of NAFLD is lowest in African Americans (~25%), highest in Americans of Hispanic ancestry (~50%), and intermediate in American whites (~33%).
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NAFLD encompasses a spectrum of liver pathology with different clinical prognoses. The simple accumulation of triglyceride within hepatocytes (hepatic steatosis) is on the most clinically benign extreme of the spectrum. On the opposite, most clinically ominous extreme, are cirrhosis (Chap. 337) and primary liver cancer (Chap. 78). The risk of developing cirrhosis is extremely low in individuals with chronic hepatic steatosis, but increases as steatosis becomes complicated by histologically conspicuous hepatocyte death and inflammation (i.e., nonalcoholic steatohepatitis [NASH]). NASH itself is also a heterogeneous condition; sometimes it improves to steatosis or normal histology, sometimes it remains relatively stable for years, but sometimes it results in progressive accumulation of fibrous scar that eventuates in cirrhosis. Once NAFLD-related cirrhosis develops, the annual incidence of primary liver cancer can be as high as 3%.
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Abdominal imaging is not able to determine which individuals with NAFLD have associated liver cell death and inflammation (i.e., NASH), and specific blood tests to diagnose NASH are not yet available. However, population-based studies that have used elevated serum ALT as a marker of liver injury indicate that about 6–8% of American adults have serum ALT elevations that cannot be explained by excessive alcohol consumption, other known causes of fatty liver disease (Table 336-1), viral hepatitis, or drug-induced or congenital liver diseases. Because the prevalence of such “cryptogenic” ALT elevations increases with body mass index, it is presumed that they are due to NASH. Hence, at any given point in time, NASH is present in about 25% of individuals who have NAFLD (i.e., about 6% of the general U.S. adult population has NASH). Smaller cross-sectional studies in which liver biopsies have been performed on NASH patients at tertiary referral centers consistently demonstrate advanced fibrosis or cirrhosis in about 25% of those cohorts. By extrapolation, therefore, cirrhosis develops in about 6% of individuals with NAFLD (i.e., in about 1.5–2% of the general U.S. population). The risk for advanced liver fibrosis is highest in individuals with NASH who are aged >45–50 years and overweight/obese or afflicted with type 2 diabetes.
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