Obesity and nonalcoholic fatty liver disease in type 1 diabetes mellitus patients

Abstract

Introduction: Assessed the prevalence of nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) in children with type 1 diabetes mellitus (T1DM). They included 15 children with T1DM and obesity, 34 children with T1DM but no obesity and 28 obese children without T1DM. The authors1 found that age and body mass index (BMI)-matched obese children with or without T1DM share similar clinical, biochemical, and liver FibroScan features. Obesity was the main risk factor for NAFLD in pediatric T1DM. Tas et al.1 also provide cut-off values for BMI, high density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDL–C) and BMI:HDL-C ratio, that may help clinicians decide which children may benefit from further investigation to establish the presence or absence of NAFLD. The authors describe the limitations of their study (including imaging techniques) and of the previous literature.1 It may be premature to eliminate a role for T1DM in the etiology of childhood NAFLD because of the limitations of the present study.1 Nevertheless, we agree with the authors1 that their study makes a valuable contribution to the limited evidence that is currently available in this field.