Background & Aims: Non-alcoholic Fatty Liver Disease (NAFLD) is both cause and consequence of metabolic disturbances. Therefore, the disease term was recently changed to metabolic dysfunction-associated steatotic liver disease (MASLD). Turkey is one of the leading countries with a high incidence of diseases such as diabetes, obesity, metabolic syndrome, and fatty liver. This study aims to identify the metabolic parameters and MASLD potential of NAFLD in Turkey.
Material & Methods: All NAFLD studies conducted in Turkey were systematically searched with "fatty liver disease" AND "turkey" keywords on Pubmed, Scopus, and Web of Science databases. In total, 2653 articles were scanned. A total of 120 studies were eligible for meta-analysis. The metabolic parameters were meta-analyzed from a wide perspective.
Results: According to meta-analysis results, there were significant increases in waist circumferences (Mean difference: 10.90, p<0.00001), HOMA-IR (Mean difference: 2.13, p <0.00001), aspartate amino transferase (AST) (Mean difference: 17.82, p<0.0.00001), systolic blood pressure (SBP) (Mean difference: 5.86, p<0.00001) and C-reactive protein (CRP) levels (Mean difference: 0.95, p<0.00001). These parameters are representative biochemical findings of disturbed glucose metabolism, lipid profile, blood pressure, and acute phase response mechanisms. Furthermore, analysis of all related parameters commonly found among the articles confirmed these metabolic dysfunctions.
Conclusion: NAFLD is a metabolic disease that includes multiple pathways related to glucose and lipid metabolism, vascular function, inflammation, and acute phase responses. Also, according to our results, Turkish NAFLD patients detected in the previous studies might mostly have MASLD. This was the first meta-analysis study indicating changes in metabolism-related parameters with the cumulative meta-analysis with all Turkish NAFLD studies.