Galarregui Cristina, Marin-Alejandre Bertha Araceli, Perez-Diaz-Del-Campo Nuria, Cantero Irene, Monreal J Ignacio, Elorz Mariana, Benito-Boillos Alberto, Herrero José Ignacio, Tur Josep A, Martínez J Alfredo, Zulet M Angeles, Abete Itziar
Department of Nutrition, Food Sciences and Physiology and Centre for Nutrition Research, Faculty of Pharmacy and Nutrition, University of Navarra, Irunlarrea 1, 31008 Pamplona, Spain.
Navarra Institute for Health Research (IdiSNA), 31008 Pamplona, Spain.
Diagnostics (Basel). 2020 Nov 8;10(11):917. doi: 10.3390/diagnostics10110917.
The identification of affordable noninvasive biomarkers for the diagnosis and characterization of nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) is a major challenge for the research community. This study aimed to explore the usefulness of ferritin as a proxy biomarker of NAFLD condition, alone or in combination with other routine biochemical parameters. Subjects with overweight/obesity and ultrasound-confirmed liver steatosis ( = 112) from the Fatty Liver in Obesity (FLiO) study were assessed. The hepatic evaluation considered magnetic resonance imaging, ultrasonography, and credited routine blood liver biomarkers. Anthropometry and body composition, dietary intake (by means of a validated 137-item food frequency questionnaire), and specific biochemical markers were also determined. Serum ferritin levels were analyzed using a chemiluminescent microparticle immunoassay kit. Lower serum ferritin concentrations were associated with general better liver health and nutritional status. The evaluation of ferritin as a surrogate of liver damage by means of quantile regression analyses showed a positive association with alanine aminotransferase (ALT) (β = 19.21; ≤ 0.001), liver fat content (β = 8.70; = 0.008), and hepatic iron (β = 3.76; ≤ 0.001), after adjusting for potential confounders. In receiver operating characteristic (ROC) analyses, the panel combination of blood ferritin, glucose, and ALT showed the best prediction for liver fat mass (area under the curve (AUC) 0.82). A combination of ferritin and ALT showed the higher predictive ability for estimating liver iron content (AUC 0.73). This investigation demonstrated the association of serum ferritin with liver health as well as with glucose and lipid metabolism markers in subjects with NAFLD. Current findings led to the identification of ferritin as a potential noninvasive predictive biomarker of NAFLD, whose surrogate value increased when combined with other routine biochemical measurements (glucose/ALT).
确定可负担得起的用于非酒精性脂肪性肝病（NAFLD）诊断和特征描述的非侵入性生物标志物，是研究界面临的一项重大挑战。本研究旨在探讨铁蛋白作为NAFLD病情替代生物标志物的效用，单独使用或与其他常规生化参数联合使用。对来自肥胖症脂肪肝（FLiO）研究的超重/肥胖且经超声确认有肝脏脂肪变性的受试者（ = 112）进行了评估。肝脏评估包括磁共振成像、超声检查以及认可的常规血液肝脏生物标志物。还测定了人体测量学和身体成分、饮食摄入量（通过一份经验证的包含137个项目的食物频率问卷）以及特定的生化标志物。使用化学发光微粒免疫分析试剂盒分析血清铁蛋白水平。较低的血清铁蛋白浓度与总体上更好的肝脏健康和营养状况相关。通过分位数回归分析评估铁蛋白作为肝损伤替代指标，在调整潜在混杂因素后，显示与丙氨酸氨基转移酶（ALT）呈正相关（β = 19.21； ≤ 0.
