Research
Hormonal
Metformin is not recommended for treating NAFLD or NASH in humans despite improving insulin sensitivity in animal models.
Do not rely on metformin to treat your fatty liver. While it helps control blood sugar in diabetes, studies show it does not improve liver health in people with NAFLD or NASH. Focus on weight loss and dietary changes instead.
GoodRefutesHIGH confidence
Results have been good in mice, where metformin reduced hyperinsulinemia and improved hepatic insulin sensitivity and reduced hepatomegaly and hepatic steatosis [66], but this effect was not observed in human studies [67, 68]. Currently, metformin is not recommended for treating NAFL and NASH.
Why this rating
Based on multiple human studies [67, 68] showing lack of efficacy, contrasted with mouse models.
Source
NAFLD, Insulin Resistance, and Diabetes Mellitus Type 2
Marinko Marušić et al. · Canadian Journal of Gastroenterology and Hepatology · 2021
DOI 10.1155/2021/6613827
narrative_reviewCited 206×
Read the paper DOI resolved against Crossref · corpus check 2026-06-10
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