Amarendra Narayan Choudhary
BACKGROUND
Little work has been done to show the association of intestinal amoebiasis with the nonalcoholic fatty liver disease. There are so many factors, which are related with the causation of NAFLD as for example obesity, diabetes mellitus, hypertension, hypercholesteraemia and sedentary living. Besides these, there are many unknown or little known factors, which should be studied. Amoebiasis is very common infection in North India including Gangetic plain of Bihar. These two conditions are very frequently observed together in a same person; therefore, a case-control study was done to confirm the association between these two conditions.
MATERIALS AND METHODS
In the present study, 120 cases of diagnosed NAFLD were taken of the age group between 30 years to 60 years, both male and female. 130 persons who were not suffering from NAFLD were taken as a control group in the same age and sex composition in the same community. Stool examination of all these 250 persons were done and cases of amoebiasis were diagnosed after getting at least two positive findings out of three examinations.
RESULTS
Prevalence of amoebiasis was clearly in excess in the NAFLD group in comparison to control group. This difference was tested statistically by calculating standard error of difference between two proportions and Chi-square test. The result showed a positive, strong and statistically significant association between NAFLD and intestinal amoebiasis.
CONCLUSION
There is a strong association between NAFLD and intestinal amoebiasis and further study is needed to show the biological plausibility to establish the causation.
