Fang YL, Chen H, Wang CL, Liang L. Pathogenesis of non-alcoholic fatty liver disease in children and adolescence: From “two hit theory” to “multiple hit model”. World J Gastroenterol 2018; 24(27): 2974-2983 [PMID: 30038464 DOI: 10.3748/wjg.v24.i27.2974]
Corresponding Author of This Article
Li Liang, MD, Chief Doctor, Professor, Department of Pediatrics, The First Affiliated Hospital, College of Medicine, Zhejiang University, 79 Qingchun Road, Hangzhou 310003, Zhejiang Province, China. zdliangli@zju.edu.cn
Research Domain of This Article
Gastroenterology & Hepatology
Article-Type of This Article
Review
Open-Access Policy of This Article
This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
World J Gastroenterol. Jul 21, 2018; 24(27): 2974-2983 Published online Jul 21, 2018. doi: 10.3748/wjg.v24.i27.2974
Pathogenesis of non-alcoholic fatty liver disease in children and adolescence: From “two hit theory” to “multiple hit model”
Yan-Lan Fang, Hong Chen, Chun-Lin Wang, Li Liang
Yan-Lan Fang, Chun-Lin Wang, Li Liang, Department of Pediatrics, The First Affiliated Hospital, College of Medicine, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou 310003, Zhejiang Province, China
Hong Chen, College of Medicine, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou 310003, Zhejiang Province, China
Author contributions: Fang YL primarily analyzed the data and wrote the paper; Chen H collected data and contributed to the writing of the manuscript; Wang CL provided essential analytical tools; Liang L supervised the design and contributed to the writing of the manuscript.
Supported byThe National Key Research and Development Program of China, No. 2016YFC1305301.
Conflict-of-interest statement: No potential conflicts of interest.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Correspondence to: Li Liang, MD, Chief Doctor, Professor, Department of Pediatrics, The First Affiliated Hospital, College of Medicine, Zhejiang University, 79 Qingchun Road, Hangzhou 310003, Zhejiang Province, China. zdliangli@zju.edu.cn
Telephone: +86-571-87235128 Fax: +86-571-87235128
Received: April 13, 2018 Peer-review started: April 13, 2018 First decision: May 9, 2018 Revised: May 26, 2018 Accepted: June 27, 2018 Article in press: June 27, 2018 Published online: July 21, 2018 Processing time: 97 Days and 15.1 Hours
Abstract
Nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) has become the dominant form of chronic liver disease in children and adolescents with the increasing prevalence of obesity worldwide. NAFLD represents a wide spectrum of conditions, ranging from fatty liver - which generally follows a benign, non-progressive clinical course - to non-alcoholic steatohepatitis, a subset of NAFLD that may progress to cirrhosis and end-stage liver disease or liver carcinoma. The underlying pathophysiological mechanism of “pediatric” NAFLD remains unclear, although it is strongly associated with obesity and insulin resistance. In this review we provide a general overview on the current understanding of NAFLD in children and adolescents, which underpins practice, enabling early diagnosis and appropriate therapeutic intervention for this life-threatening liver disease.
Core tip: Much work on nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) has been done, but an accurate understanding of its mechanism remains unclear. Our objective was to examine the current literature to better understand the pathogenesis of NAFLD, thus showing how it evolved from the “two-hit theory” to a “multiple hit model”.
