A dangerous liver disease that’s a side effect of obesity appears to be completely overcome in a majority of patients as a result of the weight loss following bariatric surgery, according to a recently published report.

Obesity, which has become epidemic in the United States, has grown from afflicting 15 percent of the population in 1980 to 32.9 percent in 2004. It leads to nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) in around 70 percent of the obese and in 85 percent to 95 percent of those who are morbidly obese. Obesity is defined using body mass index (BMI), which relates an individual’s weight to his or her height. A person with a BMI of 30 or above is considered obese. People who are morbidly obese have a BMI of 40 or more.

NAFLD has the potential to develop into cirrhosis or cancer of the liver, both deadly diseases. Gagan K. Sood, of the University of Texas Medical Branch and lead author of the new research, which was published in Clinical Gastroenterology and Hepatology, an official journal of the American Gastroenterological Association Institute, analyzed the data from 15 other studies and arrived at a hopeful conclusion.

“Our team assessed and quantified this effect [of post-bariatric-surgery weight loss on the liver] and found encouraging news: a majority of patients experience complete resolution of NAFLD after bariatric surgery, and the risk of progression of inflammatory changes and fibrosis seems to be minimal.”

Sood and his colleagues looked at four different aspects of NAFLD: steatosis (fat accumulation in liver cells), steatohepatitis (liver inflammation accompanied by fat accumulation), nonalcoholic steatohepatitis, or NASH (inflammation, fat and liver tissue damage), and fibrosis (progressively worse liver damage characterized by growth of connective tissue and scars). They found that there was improvement in or curing of steatosis among 91.6 percent of patients, of 81.3 percent of those exhibiting steatohepatitis, of 69.5 percent of NASH patients, and of 65.5 percent of those with fibrosis.

The researchers said that actual clinical studies, with uniform methods of tissue analysis, should now be undertaken to shed more light on the remarkable relationship between weight loss and NAFLD.

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Source: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/12/081201081907.htm>

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