Non-Alcoholic Fatty Liver Disease and Prediabetes

BACKGROUND: Non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) is the most common liver disease in the world. The simultaneous occurrence of NAFLD and type 2 diabetes is common, however, few studies on the prevalence of NAFLD in prediabetic patients have been performed. Therefore, the aim of this study was to determine the prevalence of NAFLD by sonography in prediabetic patients and to compare the prevalence of NAFLD between prediabetic patients and normal population. METHODS: In this cross-sectional study, 191 consecutive prediabetic patients who were referred to the internal medicine clinic in the Razi Referral Hospital of Rasht, Iran, were compared with 191 healthy controls. Diagnosis of prediabetes was based on abnormal oral glucose tolerance test or fasting plasma glucose. Both groups underwent ultrasonography for the assessment of NAFLD and data was analyzed by Student's t test and Chi-square test. RESULTS: Patient population was between 20 and 70 years old and the mean age of participants was 41.04 +/- 12.66 years. Prediabetic group had 71(37.1%) males while healthy group had 84(43.9%) males. Of the 382 subjects, 142 (37.2%) had evidence of NAFLD on ultrasound examination of which 93(65.4%) were prediaibetics (P=0.001). CONCLUSION: We show that the prevalence of NAFLD in prediabetic patients is higher than healthy individual.