Fernando Gomes Romeiro et al. Lívia Alves Amaral Santos
Obesity is markedly linked to an increased risk of all-cause mortality and its prevalence has risen to unacceptable levels in the developed world., Obesity and insulin resistance compose the core of most cases of metabolic syndrome (MS), which is a group of conditions and traits associated with an increased risk of cardiovascular disease and diabetes (approximately 2-fold and 5-fold, respectively). Non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) is the hepatic manifestation of MS and has gained attention not only for obesity-related disorders but also for the progression to non-alcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH), liver cirrhosis, and hepatocellular carcinoma. Similar to the other metabolic components involved in MS, NAFLD treatment is based on lifestyle changes that are difficult to achieve in clinical trials, making preclinical studies an excellent option to increase the knowledge about the disease and to test the interventions proposed.
However, in vitro models have severe limitations to evaluate the hepatic and extrahepatic findings of human NASH due to its multifactorial etiology. As a result, data obtained from animals are largely assessed, with a growing interest in the development of mice models. Even if many of these models do not develop steatohepatitis as the strict definition applied to human liver tissue, they are still an outstanding source of knowledge about NAFLD and NASH.
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