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Nonalcoholic fatty liver disease: lifestyle and quality of life

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Abstract

Nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) is a metabolic disorder whose current rapidly expanding prevalence is causing it to develop into a major global health concern. NAFLD is closely linked to the modern, unhealthy lifestyle. The Western diet, characterized by excessive energy intake, frequent consumption of red meat, processed meat and foods, soft drinks, and sugar-sweetened beverages (SSBs), irregular meal distribution throughout the day, and unhealthy ways of cooking, predisposes to development of NAFLD. Low levels of physical activity and prolonged sedentary time are additional lifestyle risk factors for NAFLD. Given the present lack of effective pharmacological treatment, lifestyle modifications are regarded as the cornerstone of NAFLD management. Reducing daily calorie intake together with following the Mediterranean diet (MD) is an increasingly accepted approach. Furthermore, increasing the level of physical activity and limiting sedentary behavior are additional measures proposed to improve the outcomes of the disease. Apart from being affected by lifestyle, NAFLD may also affect patients’ quality of life (QoL), mostly in the domain of physical function. In this regard, while the early and more benign form of the disease, i.e., simple hepatic steatosis, may not affect QoL, there is evidence, though conflicting, of the impact of nonalcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH) on this index, with, however, most studies showing that QoL is consistently affected in advanced disease, i.e., hepatic fibrosis, cirrhosis, and hepatocellular carcinoma. Considering all the above, appropriate management of lifestyle is likely to attenuate the severity of the disease and improve the QoL of NAFLD patients.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. 80th Battalion of Medical Corps, General Ioannis Makrygiannis Camp, Pyli, Kos, Greece

    Ilias Vachliotis

  2. First Laboratory of Pharmacology, School of Medicine, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Thessaloniki, Greece

    Ilias Vachliotis, Antonis Goulas, Paraskevi Papaioannidou & Stergios A. Polyzos

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  2. Antonis Goulas
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  3. Paraskevi Papaioannidou
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  4. Stergios A. Polyzos
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Contributions

Ilias Vachliotis: conception and design of the study, review of the literature, acquisition of articles, interpretation of articles, drafting the article, and revising it critically for important intellectual content, and final approval of the version to be submitted.

Antonis Goulas: interpretation of articles, revising the article critically for important intellectual content, and final approval of the version to be submitted.

Paraskevi Papaioannidou: interpretation of articles, revising the article critically for important intellectual content, and final approval of the version to be submitted.

Stergios A. Polyzos: conception and design of the study, interpretation of articles, revising the article critically for important intellectual content, and final approval of the version to be submitted.

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Correspondence to Ilias Vachliotis.

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Vachliotis, I., Goulas, A., Papaioannidou, P. et al. Nonalcoholic fatty liver disease: lifestyle and quality of life. Hormones 21, 41–49 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s42000-021-00339-6

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