Research
Hormonal
DPP-IV inhibitors (e.g., sitagliptin) lack strong clinical evidence for improving NAFLD/NASH histology and may be ineffective in controlled trials, despite promising animal model data.
Do not rely on DPP-IV inhibitors (like sitagliptin) to treat your liver disease. While they help with blood sugar, controlled studies show they do not significantly improve liver fat or inflammation in NAFLD/NASH patients.
GoodRefutesHIGH confidence
Of note, in all 3 controlled studies treatment with sitagliptin resulted in negative findings... Taken together, while a number of mechanisms have been proposed for DPP-IV inhibitors in animal models of NASH, strong clinical evidence for their clinical use in NAFLD/NASH is still lacking.
Why this rating
Based on multiple controlled clinical trials showing negative findings.
Source
From NASH to diabetes and from diabetes to NASH: Mechanisms and treatment options
Amalia Gastaldelli et al. · JHEP Reports · 2019
DOI 10.1016/j.jhepr.2019.07.002
narrative_reviewCited 434×
Read the paper DOI resolved against Crossref · corpus check 2026-06-10
More from this paper
- Non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) is associated with a 2- to 3-fold increased risk of developing type 2 diabetes (T2D), driven by hepatic insulin resistance, impaired beta-cell function, and lipotoxicity.Good
- Pioglitazone, GLP-1 receptor agonists (GLP-1RAs), and SGLT-2 inhibitors are pharmacological agents with potential utility in managing NASH, though GLP-1RAs show more consistent evidence for histological improvement.Good
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