A study investigated if the severity of non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) and liver fibrosis quantitatively evaluated in diabetes mellitus (DM)-2 patients is associated with an increased risk of coronary heart disease (CHD), by utilizing non-invasive markers.

A single-centre, prospective, cross-sectional study was conducted enrolling 100 diabetic individuals without known CHD.

95 individuals were subjected to history taking, physical examination, serum markers, cardiac computed tomography (CT), magnetic resonance (MR) imaging-estimated proton density fat fraction (PDFF) and MR elastography (MRE).

Independent predictors of epicardial adipose tissue (EAT) volume were determined.

The observations of the study showed-

• NAFLD group demonstrated a greater EAT volume (MR-imaging PDFF ≥ 5 %) than the non-NAFLD group (126.5 ml (IQR 80.9 versus 85.4 ml).
• MR imaging-PDFF and EAT were correlated.
• MR imaging-PDFF and liver fibrosis showed an independent correlation with EAT.

It was thus inferred that higher liver fat content and liver fibrosis may forecast worse cardiovascular risk in diabetics.

Source: Eur Radiol. 2018 Apr;28(4):1345-1355. doi: 10.1007/s00330-017-5075-6. Epub 2017 Oct 20. PMID: 29058029; PMCID: PMC6310479.