The Comparison and Contrast on NAFLD between the East and the West: Metabolic Mechanism, Dietary Habits, and Policies

¹ Union College, Schenectady, NY 12308, United States
² Department of Microbiology and Immunology, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI 48109, Unites States
³ School of pharmacy sciences, Tsinghua University, Beijing, 100084, China

^† These authors contributed equally.
^a* guom@union.edu,
^b* qianyup@umich.edu,
^c* sxj17@mails.tsinghua.edu.cn

Abstract

As non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) is becoming prevailing in both western and eastern countries, it affects people’s liver health and causing more severe diseases such as cancer, cardiovascular diseases, and type II diabetes worldwide. In this case, exploring NAFLD itself further and studying the difference between western and eastern countries from various perspectives is important for decreasing NAFLD cases. In this article, we aimed to investigate the metabolic mechanism of NAFLD, how the difference in dietary habits influenced the incidence of NAFLD worldwide, and the similarities and disparities between NAFLD policies from the East and those from the West. To reach this goal, we reviewed literature in English and Chinese that discussed NAFLD and non-alcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH) and visited official websites related to liver health. As a result, we concluded that most of the drugs designed based on fatty acid sources and metabolism had deficiencies, and lifestyle change was the best treatment. Western countries consume more meat, fewer vegetables, and a relatively similar number of fruits as eastern countries. The East and the West have relatively similar incidences of NAFLD. The high consumption of olive oil, vegetables, fruits, and whole grains and a low intake of meat in the Mediterranean diet led to a lower incidence of NAFLD in the Mediterranean area than in other places. There was overall a lack of policies on NAFLD. Still, while exploring the ones we currently had, there were some agreements and disagreements on NAFLD policies about lifestyle, diagnosis, treatment, research, organization, social problems, patient-centered care, and coalition between western and eastern countries. There were also diverse suggestions and different potential suggestions from these perspectives between the East and the West.