Prevalence of nonalcoholic fatty liver disease in hypothyroid subjects: A cross-sectional comparative study

Abstract

Background: Nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) is one of the most common causes of chronic liver disease. NAFLD has become the leading cause of liver disease globally. Hypothyroidism is a major factor in the development of NAFLD. Thus, the current investigation aimed to estimate the prevalence of NAFLD in individuals with hypothyroidism. Materials and Methods: This cross-sectional comparative study was conducted on 142 patients who qualified for the eligibility criteria. Proper history, examination, anthropometric measurements, and biochemical parameters were estimated. The collected data were entered in Excel and analyzed using the Statistical Package for Social Science 25 version developed by IBM (International Business Machine), IBM is a USA based company and the Student’s t-test and the Chi-square test were applied. Results: In this study, 12.6% of the treated subjects had fatty liver and 59.15% of the untreated subjects had fatty liver. From these untreated cases, fatty liver was found in 17.6% of subclinical hypothyroid subjects and 41.5% of overt hypothyroid subjects. There was a significant association between thyroid status and fatty liver (χ2 = 68.046, P < 0.001). Conclusions: We have found that NAFLD is more prevalent in untreated hypothyroid subjects. The severity of NAFLD is more in patients with overt hypothyroidism. Early treatment with thyroxine can prevent the progression of the fatty liver and grave consequences such as nonalcoholic steatohepatitis and cirrhosis.