Insulin resistance in development and progression of nonalcoholic fatty liver disease

Table 1 Insulin-sensitizing agents and anti-diabetic drug trials for halting nonalcoholic fatty liver disease progression

Insulin-sensitizing agent	Results of the study	Relevance to NAFLD	Ref.
Metformin	Improvements in liver histology and ALT levels in 30% of patients with NASH	Appears to be beneficial for NAFLD patients but not for non-obese patients with early-stage NAFLD	Loomba et al[72]
Pioglitazone	Improvement in the biochemical and histological features of NASH	Could be used as a treatment for NAFLD	Promrat et al[73]
Pioglitazone	Improvement in insulin resistance but not in hepatic fibrosis and ALT levels	Not adapted to treat NAFLD	Sanyal et al[74]

NASH: Nonalcoholic steatohepatitis; NAFLD: Nonalcoholic fatty liver disease; ATL: Alanine aminotransferase.