The association between visceral adipocyte hypertrophy and NAFLD in subjects with different degrees of adiposity

Objective To investigate the association between visceral adipocyte hypertrophy and the onset and development of non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) in subjects with different degrees of adiposity. Methods Omental adipose tissue and liver biopsies were collected from obese subjects. NAFLD was defined according to the NASH Clinical Research Network scoring system. Adipocyte size was measured using pathological section analysis. Adipose tissue insulin resistance (Adipo-IR) was calculated as fasting insulin (pmol/L) × fasting free fatty acid concentration (mmol/L). Results In total, 275 obese patients were enrolled, including 158 females and 58 males with NAFLD. In females, adipocyte size was significantly larger in NAFLD participants as compared to the controls (99.37 ± 14.18 vs . 84.14 ± 12.65 m, p < 0.001). Moreover, adipocyte size was larger in females with non-alcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH) as compared to those with non-alcoholic fatty liver (NAFL) (101.45 ± 12.77 vs . 95.79 ± 15.80 m, p = 0.015). Mediation analysis showed that adipocyte size impacted the NAFLD activity score through Adipo-IR ( b = 0.007 [95