Metabolism and Target Organ Damage

Primary liver cancer (PLC) is a heterogeneous group of disorders arising with the background of chronic liver disease (CLD) owing to varying etiologies. PLC carries a high lethality rate and a substantial epidemiological, clinical, and financial burden, which is projected to escalate. The two most common PLC histotypes in adults are hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) and cholangiocarcinoma (CC); the latter is sub-classified as either intrahepatic CC or extrahepatic CC. Over recent decades, there has been a decline of viral CLD accompanied by an increase in dysmetabolic CLD, resulting in PLC becoming relatively more common in Western countries. Metabolic co-morbidities are risk factors and co-factors for HCC and (increasingly) CC. Complex immunological, cellular, pro-inflammatory, molecular, and genetic processes in the systemic dysmetabolic milieu increase PLC risk. Improved understanding of these mechanisms requires close surveillance and early diagnosis of at-risk patients while paving the way for personalized medicine, chemoprevention, and innovative management of metabolic PLC.

Aim: The Global burden of nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) has significantly increased recently, with its prevalence mirroring increasing obesity and diabetes. However, population-specific evidence for young adults remains limited. Herein, we provide a 20-year trend analysis of NAFLD in young adults and examine factors associated with NAFLD and major adverse cardiovascular events (MACE) prevalence. Methods: This study uses data from the United States National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) 1999-2018. Fatty liver was examined with the fatty liver index (FLI) and United States-FLI (US-FLI), and advanced fibrosis was examined with the fibrosis-4 index. Clustered multivariate logistic regression analysis on the year of study was applied to obtain odds ratios (OR) for the estimation of events. Results: 13.31% (95%CI: 12.71% to 13.94%) of young adults had NAFLD. The prevalence increased from 9.98% in 1999 to 19.49% in 2018, with a statistically significant trend (P < 0.001). 9.52% and 5.29% of patients have clinically significant and advanced fibrosis, respectively. In multivariate analysis, diabetes (3.48, 95%CI: 2.37 to 5.11), hypertension (2.03, 95%CI: 1.62 to 2.55), elevated body mass index (1.22, 95%CI: 1.20 to 1.23, P < 0.001) significantly increases odds of NAFLD. The largest increase in odds was related to obesity (OR: 21.61, 95%CI: 16.95 to 27.55, P < 0.001). Young adults with NAFLD had a borderline non-significant increase in the prevalence of MACE compared to individuals without NAFLD (OR: 1.603, 95%CI: 0.949 to 2.708, P = 0.078). Conclusion: The rising prevalence of NAFLD in young adults depicts the changing landscape of NAFLD and its association with a significant increase in MACE. The challenge of effective risk stratification and education of these individuals remains.

More than 100 years after the discovery of insulin, the exact etiology and pathophysiology of type 1 diabetes (T1D) remains elusive, but our knowledge is growing. This leads to louder calls to initiate a risk screening for T1D in the general population. This risk screening could be based on the genetic risk (in the general population or targeted HLA genotyping in family members of persons with T1D) or on the screening for autoantibodies in blood (e.g., antibodies against insulin, GAD, IA2, or ZnT8). The presence of autoantibodies is known to convey a clearly increased risk of progressing to T1D, particularly when two or more antibody types are present. It remains a point of discussion whether screening efforts are cost-effective. At present, in the absence of interventions capable of delaying the onset of disease, the only benefit of screening is the earlier diagnosis of T1D, thus avoiding life-threatening diabetic ketoacidosis (DKA). Nevertheless, large consortia (e.g., INNODIA and TrialNet) are currently focusing on not only disease biomarkers but also biomarkers of therapeutic effect of interventions. All hope is thus focused on the arrival of intervention strategies that could arrest the ongoing immune destruction of the beta cell and thus delay clinical disease onset. Thus far, attempts have focused on either protecting the beta cell or arresting the immune response, but the future seems to be one of combination therapy. Here, we perform a scoping review on the pathogenesis of T1D, discuss screening strategies, and present promising intervention strategies.

People with diabetes mellitus (DM) undergo more elective surgery than those without DM; however, up to half of the patients are undiagnosed when referred for surgery. This is an opportunity to intervene and instigate a management plan. Preoperative strategies may vary based on coexisting medical diseases such as obesity and the availability of resources with the aim of achieving glycaemic control while also treating coexisting conditions. In the context of obesity, there is substantial overlap in some of the treatment strategies. Guidelines, such as those from the UK Centre for Perioperative Medicine, suggest target glycated haemoglobin levels, preoperative fasting blood glucose levels, and when to defer an elective operation or instigate treatment to proceed if deemed safe. Preoperatively glycaemic control is often achieved pharmacologically, and newer agents, including glucagon-like peptide one receptor agonists (GLP1-RA) and sodium-glucose co-transporter 2 (SGLT2) inhibitors, are emphasised in the preoperative management of diabetes mellitus, particularly if obesity is also present. A very low-energy diet is an underutilised but well-evidenced method of achieving both glycaemic control and weight loss with a particularly dominant effect on liver fat which is helpful for people who are due to undergo abdominal surgery. Bariatric-metabolic procedures are of growing interest as bridging interventions to surgery and are more commonly used for obesity, but they also have a well-recognized impact on the improvement and remission of DM. This review gives an overview of the necessity of preoperative identification of DM and strategies for management. Intra-operative glycaemic control is also discussed, and the role of stress hyperglycaemia perioperatively.

Metabolism and cancer intersect in multiple ways. Cancer has unique metabolic properties, including an inordinate reliance on anaerobic glycolysis (the Warburg effect). From an evolutionary standpoint, increased cancer incidence is associated with increased metabolic rates across species. Epidemiological data prove that a group of overlapping metabolic alterations, including obesity, type II Diabetes Mellitus, non-alcoholic fatty liver disease, and metabolic syndrome, constitute predisposing risk factors for cancer development in multiple anatomical sites. The molecular pathways underpinning this association involve hyperinsulinemia, hyperglycemia, sex hormones, adipokines, chronic inflammation, oxidative stress, and altered immune response.

This perspective article aims at addressing the potential commonalities associated with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) and the two metabolic fatty liver syndromes: nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) and metabolic (associated) fatty liver disease (MAFLD). To this end, we briefly review the definitions and burdens of COPD and NAFLD and highlight the differences in the diagnostic criteria of NAFLD and MAFLD. We also critically discuss the recent line of research trying to identify an association between COPD and NAFLD. Moreover, among the chief co-morbidities of COPD patients, we identify significant six that exert a major impact on the natural course of COPD: major cardiovascular events, cardiac arrhythmias, metabolic syndrome, obstructive sleep apnea, osteoporosis, and psychodepression. The potential role of NAFLD in each of these COPD co-morbidities is accurately examined based on published studies. We conclude that both COPD and NAFLD/MAFLD are heterogeneous systemic syndromes. While the complex mechanistic links underlying the association of NAFLD/MAFLD with COPD and its co-morbidities remain to be fully elucidated, we highlight that the diagnosis of metabolic fatty liver syndromes in patients with COPD might be clinically relevant, as it might allow identifying a subset of COPD individuals who, being at risk of severe clinical outcomes, would need more comprehensive treatment approaches.

Low density lipoproteins (LDL) reduction remains the key goal for reducing the risk of atherosclerotic cardiovascular diseases (CVD) in people with high residual risk and metabolic complications including liver disease. Notwithstanding, epidemiological projections support a key role of liver-derived apolipoprotein B (ApoB) containing lipoproteins, namely very low density lipoproteins (VLDL) and their “remnants” (TG), undergoing the activity of lipases, in eliciting atherosclerotic inflammatory sequelae of a comparable order of magnitude to that of LDL. Disparate experimental evidence supports that triglycerides (TG), residual cholesterol content, or the large apolipoprotein set on the surface of these lipoproteins can elicit a number of plausible immune-inflammatory mechanisms that foster the vascular atherosclerotic process. Therapeutic options that convincingly lowered the plasma levels of liver-derived ApoB containing lipoproteins, either by reducing the hepatic synthesis or by improving the peripheral lipolysis of the lipid content, did not exert robust CVD risk reduction, and the effect on inflammation was questionable. Understanding the mechanisms linking liver-derived lipoproteins with chronic inflammation will provide pathophysiological insights for the identification of new therapeutic targets for people at high CVD risk and with metabolic complications. In this perspective, this topic is of immediate interest for the prevention of CVD in patients affected by non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) and, even more, for NAFLD patients with diabetes, insulin resistance, or other comorbidities (metabolic-associated fatty liver disease). This review resumes the principal physio-pathological insights regarding the metabolism of liver-derived lipoproteins and provides an update on the current pharmacological options that can be considered for improving CVD prevention in metabolic liver diseases.

Sentiment analysis is a technique for exploring a piece of text with the aim to investigate sentiments hidden within it. The use of sentiment analysis in health care could assist in understanding how individuals discuss and feel about a specific topic. Currently, there are scarce data regarding the use of sentiment analysis related to nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD), which is the most common chronic liver disease worldwide and is associated with hepatic and extra-hepatic complications. Hence, the aim of this report was to assess the sentiments of NAFLD expressed in messages posted on Twitter, one of the most popular social media platforms worldwide. We chose the hashtags #FattyLiver, #NAFLD, #NASH, and #MAFLD as terms to identify the messages related to NAFLD on Twitter. Messages containing at least one of these hashtags were collected using the standard Application Programming Interface provided by Twitter. The sentiment analysis revealed that sentiments hidden within messages related to NAFLD were substantially neutral and that “breastcancer” and “cancer” were two of the most common words used, suggesting that a large part of messages focused on the relationship between NAFLD and extra-hepatic cancers. Conversely, the association between NAFLD and cardiovascular disease seems to be less relevant for Twitter community. These observations might be useful for developing better public health strategies and for promoting a constructive attitude among subjects that read and discuss about NAFLD (and its complications) on social media.