Gunaseelan Luxhman, Khan Umna S, Khalid Fatima, Hamid Muhammad A
Medicine, Saba University School of Medicine, Toronto, CAN.
Medicine and Surgery, Dow International Medical College, Karachi, PAK.
Cureus. 2021 Oct 10;13(10):e18641. doi: 10.7759/cureus.18641. eCollection 2021 Oct.
Non-alcoholic fatty liver disease is the accumulation of excessive fat in the liver. Various treatment options are available to manage the condition, among which carbohydrate restriction has been shown to reduce liver fat accumulation, liver inflammation, serum liver enzyme levels, and hepatic de-novo lipogenesis in people with non-alcoholic fatty liver disease. Here, we present a case report of a 25-year-old South Asian patient presenting with right upper quadrant pain, fatigue, and headaches. After confirmation of non-Alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) diagnosis by biopsy, the patient initiated a low-carbohydrate diet. Four months after which significant improvement was noticed in clinical and laboratory parameters. Peer-reviewed publications were then sourced from online databases to explore the efficacy of low-carbohydrate diets for NAFLD. Our results were compared with the existing data. However, limited literature existed for such an intervention in the South Asian population therefore, the case report is novel. Combined with findings from the literature, our results from the case report supported our hypothesis that carbohydrate restriction might promote a reduction in hepatic fat accumulation and inflammation in patients with NAFLD and diabetes in various ethnicities including South Asians.
非酒精性脂肪性肝病是肝脏中脂肪过度蓄积的疾病。有多种治疗方法可用于控制该病，其中碳水化合物限制已被证明可减少非酒精性脂肪性肝病患者的肝脏脂肪蓄积、肝脏炎症、血清肝酶水平以及肝脏从头脂肪生成。在此，我们报告一例25岁南亚患者的病例，该患者出现右上腹疼痛、疲劳和头痛症状。经活检确诊为非酒精性脂肪性肝病（NAFLD）后，患者开始采用低碳水化合物饮食。四个月后，临床和实验室指标有显著改善。随后从在线数据库中获取同行评议的出版物，以探讨低碳水化合物饮食对NAFLD的疗效。我们的结果与现有数据进行了比较。然而，针对南亚人群此类干预措施的文献有限，因此该病例报告具有新颖性。结合文献中的研究结果，我们病例报告的结果支持了我们的假设，即碳水化合物限制可能促使包括南亚人在内的不同种族的NAFLD和糖尿病患者肝脏脂肪蓄积和炎症减少。
