Hepatitis C virus: The viral way to fatty liver

The prevalence of steatosis in chronic hepatitis C patients varies between 40% and 80%, depending on the features of the population studied in terms of alcohol consumption, prevalence of overweight, diabetes and other risk factors of fatty liver [1]. If all known factors of fatty liver are excluded, the prevalence of steatosis in chronic hepatitis C is still about 40%. This figure represents an approximately two fold increase compared to the prevalence of steatosis in another common chronic liver disease like hepatitis B (∼20%) [2,3].