the evaluation of metabolic syndrome in patients diagnosed with non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (nafld): a cross-sectional study of iranian population

Background and objectives: this study aimed to assess the epidemiological aspects of nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (nafld) in an iranian population and evaluate the relationship between nafld and metabolic syndrome. materials and methods: this cross-sectional study was conducted on 145 subjects who were diagnosed with nafld and referred to the gastroenterology clinic of ghaem hospital, mashhad, iran in 2013. ultrasonography was used to diagnose nafld as a fatty liver manifestation in the absence of other liver complications. moreover, the national cholesterol education program adult treatment panel iii criteria (atp iii) was used as a guideline to establish metabolic syndrome diagnosis. results: metabolic syndrome had an overall prevalence of 49.7% among the subjects. the results showed no difference between the groups of patients with and without metabolic syndrome in terms of the mean levels of aspartate transaminase (ast) and alanine transaminase (alt) . the results did not reveal any association between our targeted liver enzymes (ast and alt) and different features of metabolic syndrome. in multivariate linear regression models, the presence of metabolic syndrome was unable to predict ast (p=0.631, r2=0.002) or alt (p=0.122, r2=0.017) abnormalities. conclusion: the results indicated a high prevalence of metabolic syndrome in iranian patients who were diagnosed with nafld. contrary to previous reports, it was found that despite the high prevalence of metabolic syndrome conditions in nafld patients, the presence of metabolic syndrome did not increase the risk of nafld in the participants of this study