الفهرس 
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Abstract
Non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) is a chronic progressive disease affecting the liver that happens in the absence of excessive alcohol consumption, ranging from simple hepatic steatosis, non-alcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH), fibrosis to cirrhosis and hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). With a global prevalence of 25.24% (22.10–28.65), NAFLD has become a very important public health problem.
The main risk factors found with NAFLD include metabolic syndrome such as obesity, type-2 diabetes and hyperlipidemia. The prevalence of obesity in European patients proved to have NAFLD ranged from 25% to 94%. Insulin resistance leads to a hyperinsulinemic state and elevates de novo lipogenesis, which further aggravate hepatic lipid accumulation and leads to the development of the disease.
MicroRNAs are highly stable non-coding RNAs, measuring about 18–25 nucleotides long that affect gene expression. They are stable in extreme circumstances such as low or high pH, extreme temperature and RNAse activity.
MicroRNAs are found in nearly all body fluids including serum, plasma and urine. The majority of microRNAs have been correlated with a lot of disease conditions including metabolic disease, NAFLD, chronic hepatitis B&C and cancer.
The aim of this study is to evaluate Circulating microRNA-34a as a molecular link between insulin resistance and nonalcoholic fatty liver disease.
This study was carried out on 40 participants between June 2017 and June 2018. They were classified into 2 groups: group I included 20 patients newly diagnosed as Nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) and had not received any treatment. group II included 20 apparently healthy volunteers defined as those with normal transaminases, normal hepatic ultrasound and negative for HBsAg, HCV-Ab.
All data were statistically analyzed. Results were compared to results of similar researches; where this study found that there was statistically significant increase in MiR-34a levels in group I than group II with p-value < 0.001. Also there was statistically significant positive correlation between MiR-34a and age, BMI, HOMA-IR, NAFLD-fibrosis score, ALT, AST, TGs, F.ins and F.Glu. The best cut off point to differentiate between normal and NAFLD group regarding MIR34-a was found > 1.46 with sensitivity of 80%, specificity of 100% and area under curve (AUC) of 92.2%.