Abstract

Given the global rise in obesity-related metabolic diseases, the upper limit of normal (ULN) alanine aminotransferase (ALT) in individuals with and without metabolic diseases may have changed. We performed a meta-analysis combined with bootstrap modelling to estimate the ALT ULN levels for individuals with and without metabolic diseases.Two separate searches of the PubMed, Embase and Cochrane databases were performed, one to identify healthy individuals which yielded 12 articles (349,367 individuals); another to include those with potential metabolic diseases but without known liver disease which yielded 35 articles (232,388 individuals). We estimated the mean ALT using a random-effects mixed model and the ULN level (95th-percentile value) via a bootstrap model with 10,000 resamples. In individuals without metabolic diseases and known liver disease, the ALT ULN levels were 32?U/L overall; 36?U/L in males and 28?U/L in females. In analyses that included individuals with metabolic diseases, the ALT ULN levels were 40?U/L among the overweight/obese (29?U/L if normal weight) and 36?U/L among those with type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) (33?U/L if no T2DM). On meta-regression of study-level factors, body mass index (coefficient 1.49, 95% CI 0.11-2.86, p?=?0.03), high-density lipoprotein (coefficient -0.47, 95% CI -0.85-(-0.08), p?=?0.02) and triglycerides (coefficient 0.19, 95% CI 0.12-0.25, p?

View details for DOI 10.1111/apt.17914

View details for PubMedID 38372477