Liver Disease Diagnosis and Treatment

Nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) is the accumulation of excess fat in liver cells in people who drink little or no alcohol, and it has become the most common chronic liver condition worldwide, affecting roughly a quarter of the global adult population. The disease spans a spectrum from simple fat buildup (hepatic steatosis) to the more aggressive form known as nonalcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH), which can progress to fibrosis, cirrhosis, and hepatocellular carcinoma, often in people who also have obesity, type 2 diabetes, or metabolic syndrome. A central challenge is that liver biopsy — still the diagnostic gold standard for staging fibrosis and distinguishing NASH from milder disease — is invasive and impractical at population scale, driving active research into reliable non-invasive biomarkers and imaging methods. Understanding exactly how insulin resistance and metabolic dysfunction tip the liver from benign steatosis toward irreversible scarring remains an open and consequential question, as answering it would clarify both prevention strategies and targets for therapies that currently have limited options.

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Keywords

NAFLDNASHLiver FibrosisInsulin ResistanceHepatic SteatosisLiver Biopsy