4–6 Liver enzyme changes are neither highly sensitive nor specific to accumulation of fat in the liver and related liver damage. Further, only a minority of patients with T2D have abnormal liver enzymes, while the entire histological spectrum of NAFLD can be seen in patients with normal liver enzymes.7,8 Thus, normal liver enzymes is not a perfect criterion to exclude NAFLD, and patients with alterations in glucose metabolism and insulin resistance despite normal ALT should also be considered in selecting cases of possible NAFLD for hepatic imaging and/or histological assessment.8 Ultrasonography can estimate the severity of the hepatic steatosis relatively

accurately, even though it cannot differentiate between the histological entities of simple steatosis and non-alcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH).12 The presence of NAFLD by ultrasound correlated significantly with the number of MetS components.13 Compared Endocrinology antagonist with overall obesity (body mass index, BMI) and abdominal obesity (waist circumference), ultrasound-diagnosed fatty liver had the highest positive predictive value and most attributable risk as a percentage for detecting clustering of cardiovascular risk factors as MetS.2 Therefore, NAFLD defined by ultrasound may be a better diabetes predictor than liver enzymes. In order to determine the association between ultrasound-diagnosed

NAFLD and risk of development of diabetes, Shibata et al. conducted an observational cohort study selleck inhibitor among middle-aged male workers in a Japanese company from 1997–2005.9 Workers who had a daily alcohol consumption of more than 20 g and those with impaired glucose tolerance by 75 g OGTT were excluded. The remaining 3189 workers were MCE classified into fatty

liver and non-fatty liver groups based on the findings of liver ultrasonography. Both groups were followed for development of T2D. Hazard ratio (HR) was determined in a Cox proportional hazard analysis, and a nested case–control study was conducted to determine the odds ratio (OR). The average age of participants was 48 years at entry, and mean follow up was 4 years. The incidence of diabetes in the fatty liver group was 2073/100 000 person-years (65 cases), whereas it was 452/100 000 person-years (44 cases) in the non-fatty liver group. The age- and BMI-adjusted HR of diabetes associated with fatty liver was 5.5 (95% confidence interval [CI] = 3.6–8.5). In the nested case–control analysis, the OR adjusted for age and BMI was 4.6 (95% CI = 3.0–6.9). These findings are similar to those of Fan et al. who recently found Chinese patients with ultrasound-diagnosed NAFLD had a threefold increase in incidence of diabetes than age-, sex- and occupation-matched controls over a 6-year follow-up period, although this study did not adjust fully for metabolic factors other than obesity.