NON-ALCOHOLIC FATTY LIVER DISEASE, MODERN VIEWS

This article presents a literary review of the problem of non-alcoholic fatty liver disease, which is a polyetiological disease. Excessive consumption of foods rich in animal fats and easily digestible carbohydrates leads to the accumulation of large amounts of free fatty acids from the gastrointestinal tract into the blood and further into the tissues, resulting in steatosis. Inflammatory mediators, actively released by adipose tissue, directly damage the membranes of hepatocytes, which leads to the accumulation of fibrous tissue in the liver. The main feature of this disease is that it is often asymptomatic and is diagnosed incidentally on the basis of laboratory or instrumental studies performed in patients with metabolic syndrome. Being a very common pathology, non-alcoholic fatty liver disease requires a thorough study of the mechanisms of its pathogenesis and the search for the most optimal non-invasive methods for identifying and evaluating complex forms (steatohepatitis, fibrosis, cirrhosis).