Progress in the Treatment of Metabolic-Related Fatty Liver Disease

Metabolic fatty liver disease (MAFLD) is a common chronic liver disease, and its incidence is increasing year by year. The existing treatments mainly include drugs, surgery, and lifestyle interventions. At present, no effective treatment exists for the disease.

The review intended to examine the progress of research on MAFLD in recent years, to find a future research direction and focus and identify different therapeutic targets in the treatment of patients.

The research team performed a narrative review by searching Pubmed databases. The search used the keywords including metabolic-associated fatty liver disease (MAFLD), non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD), non-alcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH), metabolic-associated steatohepatitis (MASH), metabolic syndrome, liver, fibrosis, and lipotoxicity.

The purpose of this article is to provide an overview of the recent research advancements in the treatment of MAFLD from three perspectives: drug therapy, surgical treatment, and non-drug/non-surgical treatment. The aim is to identify future research directions and key areas of focus in the management of MAFLD, as well as to determine various treatment targets for patients.

Given the complexity of MAFLD's pathogenesis, drug therapy alone isn't ideal. In caring for patients with fatty liver, clinicians must emphasize a change in lifestyle to a healthier one. At the same time, clinicians, dieticians, psychological experts, and exercise physiologists should provide, in addition to clinical medication, multidisciplinary and cooperative efforts to help patients improve the quality of their lives through diet and exercise to control disease progression.