New gene causing fatty liver identified in United States

Fatty liver disease is a complication of obesity and is one of the most common causes of chronic liver disease throughout the world. With the increasing obesity epidemic, it is now increasingly affecting children globally. It was traditionally thought to be a benign disease but now it is increasingly recognized that it can lead to liver fibrosis, liver cancer and failure when it continues to progress. Dr. Tavleen Bhatia, who specializes in children with digestive problems and liver disease, along with her colleagues at University at Buffalo, has for the very first time identified certain genes called as SFRP genes which are increased in children with fatty liver disease who develop liver fibrosis as compared to children who do not. Dr. Bhatia says “Understanding why certain children develop fibrosis while others don’t is important and lays the foundation to develop treatment strategies to prevent the liver fibrosis in fatty liver disease”. Dr. Bhatia is dedicated towards unraveling the mechanism of fatty liver disease and find a cure. She recently published an article on the mechanism of fatty liver disease in one of the leading journals Cellular and molecular life sciences. Dr. Bhatia says “Fatty liver currently affects 1 in 4 individuals globally and is often silent till late stages of fibrosis and unfortunately diagnosed in some cases, when the patient is already in liver failure or has developed hepatocellular cancer”. This should serve as a wake up call for the physicians to screen patients more aggressively and for government to start making efforts to spread awareness of complications of obesity.