A Fatty World: Exploring Racial Disparity in NAFLD/NASH

Several metabolic diseases as well as their associated underlying risk factors have been found to be more pronounced in selective ethnic communities. For example, in the United States (US) type 2 diabetes is more prevalent in African and Native Americans than Caucasians [1]. In addition, obesity is highly widespread among both African American and Hispanic groups. This point was emphasized in a recent publication that described nearly half of African Americans (48%) and Hispanics (43%) in the US are categorized as obese [2]. Many of these race-related differences are derived from intrinsic ethnic factors and/or genetic polymorphism (variants in a particular DNA sequence). A similar trend has arisen for liver metabolic disorders such as nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD). This overview will highlight the prevalence of NAFLD and the associated risk factors within ethnic populations from a national and global perspective.