Editorial
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2024. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Gastroenterol. Jun 28, 2024; 30(24): 3016-3021
Published online Jun 28, 2024. doi: 10.3748/wjg.v30.i24.3016
Alanine aminotransferase predicts incident steatotic liver disease of metabolic etiology: Long life to the old biomarker!
Amedeo Lonardo
Amedeo Lonardo, Department of Internal Medicine, Azienda Ospedaliero-Universitaria of Modena (2023), Modena 41126, Italy
Author contributions: Lonardo A was responsible for all steps of this editorial, from ideation to editing.
Conflict-of-interest statement: The author declares having no conflicts of interest.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article that was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Noncommercial (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: https://creativecommons.org/Licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Corresponding author: Amedeo Lonardo, MD, Academic Research, Doctor, Professor, Senior Lecturer, Department of Internal Medicine, Azienda Ospedaliero-Universitaria of Modena (2023), Ospedale Civile di Baggiovara, Modena 41126, Italy. a.lonardo@libero.it
Received: March 3, 2024
Revised: May 7, 2024
Accepted: May 28, 2024
Published online: June 28, 2024
Processing time: 113 Days and 20.5 Hours
Core Tip

Core Tip: The recent paper published by Chen et al has two main findings. First, > 80% of individuals with metabolic dysfunction-associated fatty liver disease (MAFLD) had normal alanine aminotransferase (ALT) levels. Second, there was a linear increasing trend in the association between cumulative excess high-normal ALT levels and the rate of incident MAFLD. Future studies on steatotic liver disease owing to metabolic dysfunction should adopt locally determined and prospectively validated reference ranges of ALT and carefully consider sex differences in liver enzymes and the pathobiology of MAFLD.