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Case Reports
. 2017 Sep 19;6(9):88.
doi: 10.3390/jcm6090088.

Can Diet Help Non-Obese Individuals with Non-Alcoholic Fatty Liver Disease (NAFLD)?

Hamid A Merchant  1
Affiliations
Case Reports

Can Diet Help Non-Obese Individuals with Non-Alcoholic Fatty Liver Disease (NAFLD)?

Hamid A Merchant. J Clin Med. .

Abstract

Subjects diagnosed with non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) or hepatic steatosis are usually obese or overweight. NAFLD has also been reported in many non-obese healthy subjects as an incidental finding during imaging. Subjects with early-stage NAFLD who are otherwise healthy are often left unmanaged in current clinical practice; it is not clear if an early intervention in those individuals would be of any benefit in preventing NAFLD progression to more serious conditions. Since many of these subjects are non-alcoholic and have a normal body mass index (BMI), an intensive lifestyle change program is not usually recommended. This report presents an otherwise healthy non-alcoholic subject with incidental NAFLD having a normal BMI and a waist circumference below 90 cm who successfully reversed his condition by undertaking a lifestyle intervention. The case report is expected to encourage large cohort studies to substantiate the benefits of dietary interventions in alleviating hepatic steatosis among non-obese individuals.

Keywords: NAFLD; NASH; diabetes risk; fatty liver disease; hyperinsulinemia; insulin resistance; intensive lifestyle change program.

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Conflict of interest statement

The author has declared a relationship with the subject of the clinical case presented in this article.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Twenty-four hour ambulatory blood pressure measurement in the subject. The lines represents systolic/diastolic blood pressure recorded over a 24 h period, where the measurements during sleep shows a nighttime dipping (indicated by crossed-marks). The inset shows a distribution of measurements (filled symbols) with minimum/maximum (red bars) and average readings (red filled-circles) in the same subject during sleep/awake cycles, where “Sys” and “Dia” refer to systolic and diastolic blood pressures, respectively.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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