Nonalcoholic Fatty Liver Disease

Nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (or NAFLD) is a recently recognized chron­ ic liver disease, strongly linked to obesity. As the number of obese Americans has doubled in the past three decades, not sur­ prisingly, NAFLD is becoming increasingly common. The hallmark of persons with NAFLD is having too much fat in the liver. This fat is deposited within the cells of the liver (the medical term is steatosis) and this steatosis in turn can cause varying degrees of further liver injury. Importantly, while too much alcohol can also cause fat to build up in the liver, the term NAFLD refers specifi­ cally only to people with liver fat who drink little or no alcohol and therefore for whom their level of alcohol use has little to do with their liver disease.