Significance of serum levels of tumor necrosis factor-a in patients with non-alcoholic fatty liver disease

Abstract

Objective To detect and evaluate the significance of physical indicator,biochemical indicator and tumor necrosis factor alpha (TNF-α) in the serum of patients with non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD).Methods 132 NAFLD patients and 132 healthy individuals were recruited.Height,body weight,waist circumference (WC),systolic blood pressure (SBP) and diastolic blood pressure (DBP) were measured.The levels of alanine aminotransferase (ALT),aspartate aminotransferase (AST),fasting serum glucose (GLU),triglyceride (TG),total cholesterol (TC) and uric acid (UA) were detected.Serum TNF-α levels were determined by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) in patients with NAFLD and controls.The correlation between NAFLD and serum TNF-α was analyzed by Spearman correlation analysis.The risk factors of NAFLD were analyzed by logistic regression models.Results BMI [(25.37 ± 3.29) kg/m2],WC [(84.33 ± 11.00) cm],SBP [(134.93 ± 19.32) mmHg],DBP [(82.50 ± 13.33) mmHg],the levels of ALT [(24.59 ± 16.01) U/L],AST [(23.88 ± 10.56) U/L],UA [(322.96 ± 95.57) μmol/L],triglyceride [(1.69 ± 0.96) mmol/L] in the NAFLD group were evidently higher than those in control group [23.11 ±2.23 kg/m2,(78.00 ± 6.67) cm,(122.73 ± 17.64) mmHg,(75.35 ± 11.52) mmHg,(15.62 ± 10.64) U/L,(19.79 ± 5.68) U/L,(287.91 ± 93.16) μmol/L,(1.23 ± 0.74) mmol/L,respectively,all P ＜ 0.01].Serum TNF-α levels in the NAFLD group [(2.78 ± 1.46) pg/ml] were evidently higher than those in control group [(2.17 ± 1.21) pg/ml,P ＜ 0.05] and positively correlated with NAFLD (r value was 0.185,P ＜ 0.01).The levels of TNF-α,BMI,WC,SBP,DBP,ALT,AST,UA and TG were significantly different between the two groups (P ＜ 0.05),but the levels of GLU and CHOL were not significantly different.Multivariate logistic regress results showed that the levels of TNF-α,BMI and TG were the risk factors of NAFLD with [OR (95％ CI) of 1.826 (1.708-2.664),1.689 (1.542-1.891) and 1.437 (1.127-1.737),respectively,all P ＜ 0.05].Conclusion The levels of TNF-α were significantly increased in NAFLD patients.These results suggest that TNF-α might play an important role in the pathogenesis of non-alcoholic fatty liver disease. Key words: Non-alcoholic fatty liver disease; Tumor necrosis factor-α; Body mass index