BACKGROUND: Nonalcoholic fatty liver disease（NAFLD）is a common chronic liver disease in China, of which diabetic fatty liver（DFL）accounts for a large proportion in clinic. DFL is a disease without specific clinical features and lacking of confirmatory laboratory tests, and the etiology of hepatic steatosis remains poorly understood. The aim of this paper was to explore the clinical characteristics and to determine associated risk factors in type 2 diabetes patients with fatty liver.
METHODS: A total of 166 patients, 53 in DFL group and 113 in NDFL（diabetes without fatty liver）group participated in this study. Serum fasting blood glucose（FBG）, alanine aminotransferase（ALT）, aspartate aminotransferase（AST）, alkaline phosphate（AKP）, gamma glutamyl transpeptidase（GGT）, total cholesterol（TC）, triglyceride（TG）, high density lipoprotein-cholesterol（HDL-C）were measured in both groups. And these variables were analyzed by using Student’s t test and logistic regression model.
RESULTS:A progressive increase in the level of FBG, ALT, AST, AKP, GGT, TG (P＜0.05) and a decrease of HDL-C（P＜0.01）were observed from DFL group to NDFL group. And there was no statistical difference in the level of TC between the two groups.
CONCLUSIONS: Dyslipidemia, dysglycemia and elevation of liver enzyme can be seen more frequently in the DFL patients than in the NDFL patients. The successive escalation of serum ALT and TG levels and the lower HDL-C level are the independent risk factors of DFL.