Targeting gut microbiota in non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD): Pathogenesis and therapeutic insights: A review

Abstract

Non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) is a clinicopathological syndrome characterized by hepatic steatosis associated with insulin resistance, oxidative stress, inflammatory responses, and other factors. The precise pathogenesis of NAFLD remains unclear. Although it has emerged as a global health burden, current therapeutic options for example, probiotics, prebiotics, synbiotics and fecal microbiota transplantation (FMT) have shown promising but varied efficacy. Moreover, use of traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) in NAFLD patients, has gained growing attention for its multi-targeted regulatory properties and several natural product formulations and their beneficial impacts on gut microbiota, lipid metabolism and hepatic health. The article highlights the role of gut microbiota dysbiosis in the pathogenesis of NAFLD and explores the therapeutic strategies emphasizing the need of personalized multimodal approaches and robust clinical trials to validate these interventions.

Keywords: FMT; Gut microbiota; NAFLD; Probiotics; TCM.