Nonalcoholic Fatty Liver Disease: Clinical Feature, Biomarker, Treatment, and Pathogenesis

Dear Colleagues,

NAFLD has to date been diagnosed by excluding other chronic liver diseases, including “excessive” alcohol consumption. Recently, however, a “positive criterion” has been proposed for metabolic-dysfunction-associated fatty liver disease (MAFLD). The criteria for this are based on evidence of hepatic steatosis, in addition to one of the following three criteria, namely, overweight/obesity, presence of type 2 diabetes mellitus, or evidence of metabolic dysregulation. NAFLDs, including NASH, and MAFLD, are currently the most common liver diseases worldwide. The principle of NAFLD/NASH treatment is weight loss by exercise and diet. There is no therapeutic drug with evidence, and a therapeutic drug for complications such as arteriosclerosis, diabetes, dyslipidemia, and hypertension to be used for drug therapy is currently under development. Accurate and non-invasive tools for identifying advanced fibrosis stages by blood sampling and imaging instead of liver biopsy are is also expected to be developed. The analysis of long-term prognosis, including the incidence of liver-related events, cardiovascular disease, and malignancy, is also important. Furthermore, it is necessary to examine factors and markers that can predict progression. In recent years, non-obese NASH/NAFLD (lean NASH/NAFLD; (BMI Caucasian ≤ 25 kg/m² Asian ≤ 23 kg/m²)) is also an important topic.

In this Special Issue, we invited papers providing up-to date information stemming from clinical research on the etiology, pathogenesis, diagnosis, and prognosis of NAFLD, including lean NAFLD and MAFLD.

Dr. Miwa Kawanaka
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Medical Sciences is an international peer-reviewed open access quarterly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 1400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

• Fatty liver disease
• Metabolic-associated fatty liver disease (MAFLD)
• Nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD)
• Nonalcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH)
• Lean NASH/NAFLD
• Diabetes mellitus
• Biomarker
• Clinical future
• Treatment