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Copyright ©The Author(s) 2015. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Hepatol. Jun 8, 2015; 7(10): 1369-1376
Published online Jun 8, 2015. doi: 10.4254/wjh.v7.i10.1369
Non-alcoholic fatty liver disease - the heart of the matter
Haneen Azzam, Stephen Malnick
Haneen Azzam, Stephen Malnick, Department of Internal Medicine C, Kaplan Medical Center, Rehovot 76100, Israel
Author contributions: Both Azzam H and Malnick S contributed equally to the planning and writing of this manuscript.
Conflict-of-interest: The authors have no conflicts of interest to declare.
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: Stephen Malnick, MA, MSc MBBS, Department of Internal Medicine C, Kaplan Medical Center, Pasternak St., P.O.B 1, Rehovot 76100, Israel. stephen@malnick.net
Telephone: +97-28-9441371 Fax: +97-28-9441852
Received: December 21, 2014
Peer-review started: December 21, 2014
First decision: January 20, 2015
Revised: March 2, 2015
Accepted: March 30, 2015
Article in press: April 2, 2015
Published online: June 8, 2015
Processing time: 164 Days and 7.2 Hours
Abstract

Non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) is one of the most common forms of chronic liver disease in the Western world. There is a close association with the metabolic syndrome and NAFLD is considered to be the hepatic manifestation of the metabolic syndrome. The components of the metabolic syndrome include hypertension, obesity and insulin resistance which are well established cardiovascular risk factors. The mortality rate of NAFLD patients from myocardial infarction is higher than that in the general United States population and there is also an increased risk of non-fatal cardiovascular events. This article reviews the cardiovascular complications associated with NAFLD. In order to provide comprehensive care of NAFLD patients, physicians need to be aware of, and search for, the cardiac morbidity associated with NAFLD.

Keywords: Cardiovascular; Diastolic dysfunction; Sleep apnea; Palatin-like phospholipase domain containing 3 gene; Non-alcoholic fatty liver disease

Core tip: Non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) is the hepatic manifestation of the metabolic syndrome. Due to the overlapping cardiovascular risk factors in the metabolic syndrome, there are cardiovascular consequences linked to the presence of NAFLD in a patient. We review these complications and also a less well appreciated complication of diastolic dysfunction that is intimately associated with NAFLD. Physicians looking after NAFLD patients need to be aware of these complications and actively search for and treat them.