Nonalcoholic Fatty Liver Disease (NAFLD) in Saudi Patients with T2DM in Jazan Region: Prevalence and Associated Factors

Backgrounds: Non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) has become one of the major health problems world widely, especially among communities with sedentary lifestyle. The main objectives of this study were to know the prevalence of NAFLD among Saudi patients with T2DM in Jazan region and to determine the most important associated factors.
Materials and Methods: A cross sectional study targeted 230 type 2 diabetic patients, who attended Diabetic Center at Jazan General Hospital. All participants were screened for NAFLD using abdominal ultrasonography in addition to clinical and laboratory workup. Descriptive statistics, Chi square/Fisher exact test and logistic regression were utilized for data analysis.
Results: The prevalence of fatty liver in the present study was 47.8% (95% CI 41.1–54.6), with no significant difference between males 49.1% (95% CI 40.0–58.3) and females 46.3% (95% CI 36.6-56.3). The prevalence of NAFLD was found to be 52.9% among patients who their ages range between 40-59 years. Factors associated with NAFLD were found to be age, uric acid, aspartate aminotransferase (AST) and alanine aminotransferase (ALT) (p-value<0.05 for all).
Conclusion: NAFLD is tremendously common among people with type 2 diabetes in Jazan region and the major associated factors were age, obesity, uric acid and elevated liver enzymes. There was no positive correlation between the presence of fatty liver and duration of DM or the degree of glycemic control.