Nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) has recently emerged as the leading cause of chronic liver disease in children, but the epidemiology in Indian childen is not well documented. This study aimed to document the prevalence of NAFLD and its association with metabolic syndrome in north Indian urban school children. Between November 2011 and December 2012, 5,643 north Indian urban school children aged 5–10 years were screened. NAFLD was diagnosed via the presence of fatty liver on ultrasound and absence of viral and metabolic causes. Among study subjects, 8.8% were overweight and 61.5% were normal-weight; notably, 20% were hypertensive. Of the 961 subjects who underwent ultrasound examination, 215 (22.4%) had fatty liver (158/836 [18.9%] of normal-weight subjects vs 57/125 [45.6%] of overweight subjects). Presence of fatty liver disease and severity increased with body mass index (BMI) and age. Among 135 children with NAFLD underwent biochemical evaluation, 21.5% had elevated aspartate aminotransferase (AST) and alanine aminotransferase (ALT) levels, and enzyme derangement was higher in males (24.7% vs 16.7% in females), overweight subjects (27% vs 19.4% in normal-weight) and those with moderate-degree fatty liver (28% vs 20% in those with mild cases). Low high-density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDL), hypertriglyceridemia and hyperglycemia were present in 37.8%, 16.3% and 12% of NAFLD cases, respectively. Eleven (8.1%) children had metabolic syndrome (MS) as per criteria of Ferreira et al, with hypertriglyceridemia, obesity and low HDL being the commonest abnormalities. Higher BMI (odds ratio [OR], 63), severe fatty liver disease (OR, 1.7) and female sex (OR, 1.9) had a strong association with MS. The proportion of subjects with MS changed with use of different cutoffs: 15.5% as per waist circumference (WC) cutoff by McCarthy et al, 5.2% as per the International Obesity Task Force BMI cutoff and 10.3% as per blood pressure cutoff by Manu Raj et al. The prevalence of NAFLD among north Indian children was higher compared to their Asian counterparts. A significant proportion of normal-weight children also have NAFLD. Lack of appropriate cutoffs for MS for Indian children and non-uniformity in criteria for MS makes comparisons between regions challenging.
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