A long-term follow-up study used sequential liver biopsy specimens to evaluate fibrosis and signs of steatohepatitis in a large number of severely obese patients undergoing bariatric surgery, and found that bariatric surgery reduces steatosis in most patients. There are some important lessons to be learnt from the findings of this study and some unanswered questions for further investigation.
This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution
Access options
Subscribe to this journal
Receive 12 print issues and online access
$209.00 per year
only $17.42 per issue
Buy this article
- Purchase on Springer Link
- Instant access to full article PDF
Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout
References
Clark, J. M. The epidemiology of nonalcoholic fatty liver disease in adults. J. Clin. Gastroenterol. 40 (Suppl. 1), S5–S10 (2006).
Baker, M. K., Byrne, T. K. & Feldmann, M. E. Surgical treatment of obesity. Prim. Care 36, 417–427 (2009).
Mathurin, P. et al. prospective study of long-term effects of bariatric surgery on liver injury in patients without advanced disease. Gastroenterology 137, 532–540 (2009).
Mummadi, R. R., Kasturi, K. S., Chennareddygari, S. & Sood, G. K. Effect of bariatric surgery on nonalcoholic fatty liver disease: systematic review and meta-analysis. Clin. Gastroenterol. Hepatol. 6, 1396–1402 (2008).
de Andrade, A. R. et al. Nonalcoholic fatty liver disease in severely obese individuals: the influence of bariatric surgery. Ann. Hepatol. 4, 364–368 (2008).
Dixon, J. B., Bhathal, P. S., Hughes, N. R. & O'Brien, P. E. Nonalcoholic fatty liver disease: improvement in liver histological analysis with weight loss. Hepatology 39, 1647–1654 (2004).
Brunt, E. M. et al. Portal chronic inflammation in nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFDL): a histologic marker of advanced NAFLD-clinicopathologic correlations from the Nonalcoholic Steatohepatitis Clinical Research Network. Hepatology 49, 809–820 (2009).
Colquitt, J. L., Picot, J., Loveman, E. & Clegg, A. J. Surgery for obesity. Cochrane Database Syst. Rev. 2, CD003641 (2009).
Adams, T. D. et al. Long-term mortality after gastric bypass surgery. N. Engl. J. Med. 357, 753–761 (2007).
Sjostrom, L. et al. Effects of bariatric surgery on mortality in Swedish obese subjects. N. Engl. J. Med. 357, 741–752 (2007).
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Ethics declarations
Competing interests
The authors declare no competing financial interests.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Cotrim, H., Daltro, C. Does bariatric surgery reduce the severity of NAFLD?. Nat Rev Gastroenterol Hepatol 7, 11–13 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1038/nrgastro.2009.215
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/nrgastro.2009.215