Abstract
Background
Nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) has a high prevalence in the general population and is the most common liver disease in Western countries. It is a feature of metabolic syndrome and is characterized by excessive accumulation of fat in the liver cells.
Methods
We examined 84 consecutive middle-aged (under 45 years) patients with NAFLD and 65 control subjects matched for age, gender, and body mass index to determine carotid intima-media thickness (CIMT) and flow-mediated dilatation (FMD) in the brachial artery.
Results
There was a statistically significant difference between CIMT and percentage increase in FMD in the patient group (P = 0.002; r = 0.33) when compared with the control group (P = 0.97; r = 0.005). The mean ± standard deviation CMIT was 0.65 ± 0.09 mm in patients and 0.55 ± 0.07 mm in controls. This difference was statistically significant (P = 0.001). Mean FMD in patients was 6.4% and 15.7% in controls. This difference was statistically significant (P = 0.001).
Conclusion
This study shows that pure NAFLD without metabolic syndrome in middle-aged subjects is strongly associated with morphological (CIMT) and physiological (FMD) changes. These findings may have an important role in increasing cardiovascular risk in these patients.
Acknowlegment
We would like to thank Dr Zahra Yekta, Department of Community Medicine, Urmia University of Medical Sciences for her help in analyzing the data.
Disclosure
The authors report no conflicts of interest in this work.