The Paradoxical Protective Effect of Liver Steatosis on Severity and Functional Outcome of Ischemic Stroke

Conclusions: Our study shows that a higher burden of liver steatosis seems to be associated with less severe stroke and better functional outcome after ischemic stroke or TIA. Introduction Non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) is a spectrum of diseases from simple steatosis to steatohepatitis with varying degree of fibrosis, and liver cirrhosis (1, 2). NAFLD is becoming the most common chronic liver disease worldwide including Korea, affecting approximately 25% of the general population (3, 4). NAFLD is closely associated with obesity, insulin resistance, and type 2 diabetes mellitus, and is even recognized as a manifestation of metabolic syndrome in the liver (5). Furthermore, NAFLD is known to be clearly associated with cardiovascular morbidity and mortality (6, 7), and liver fibrosis is especially considered the key determinant (7–11). Ischemic stroke is also suggested to be associated with NAFLD, especially liver fibrosis (7, 10, 12). In the previous study, we found that there was 41.5% of patients with NAFLD in ischemic stroke patients (10), similar with previous reports (23.0–42.7%) from other countries (12–14). However, there is a paucity of studies attempting to find the association between NAFLD and the stroke severity or functional outcome after ischemic stroke (12, 14, 15). Some previous studies, which defined NAFLD as the presence of elevated aminotransferase levels without apparent causes (12, 14, 15), failed to show a statist...
Source: Frontiers in Neurology - Category: Neurology Source Type: research