Obesity has recently emerged as a significant health problem in the pediatric population, and the prevalence of non-alcoholic fatty liver disease is increasing in tandem with a significant rise in childhood obesity. Therefore, this study was conducted to clarify the risk factors of non-alcoholic steatohepatitis in obese children.

We enrolled 84 obese children who visited the pediatric obesity clinic at Yeung-Nam university hospital. The patients were divided into two groups based on their alanine aminotransferase (ALT) level (separated at 40 IU/L), and the mean of ages, total cholesterol levels, HDL-cholesterol levels, LDL-cholesterol levels, triglyceride (TG) levels, as well as the mean obesity index, and body fat percentage of the two groups were then compared.

When the mean of ages (10.5±1.6 vs. 10.7±2.0 years), total cholesterol levels (183.0±29.1 vs. 183.7±31.3 mg/dL), HDL-cholesterol levels (53.0±10.2 vs. 55.7±13.0 mg/dL), LDL-cholesterol levels (113.4±30.2 vs. 113.0±30.0 mg/dL), triglyceride levels (99.4±62.9 vs. 114.2±47.3 mg/dL), obesity indexes (44.7±12.2 vs. 47.9±15.1%), and body fat percentages (32.7±5.0 vs. 34.0±4.8%) of group 1 (ALT≤40 IU/L) were compared with those of group 2 (ALT≥41 IU/L), no significant differences were observed (p>0.05). However, hypertriglyceridemia (TG≥110 mg/dL) was more frequent in group 2 than in group 1 (p=0.023).

TG may be an important risk factor in non-alcoholic steatohepatitis and further study regarding the risk factors in non-alcoholic steatohepatitis is required