MIDDLE EAST JOURNAL OF FAMILY MEDICINE • VOLUME 7, ISSUE 10 13 WORLD FAMILY MEDICINE/MIDDLE EAST JOURNAL OF FAMILY MEDICINE VOLUME 15 ISSUE 9, NOVEMBER 2017 ORIGINAL CONTRIBUTION / CLINICAL INVESTIGATION Alanine aminotransferase indicates excess weight and dyslipidemia Mehmet Rami Helvaci (1) Orhan Ayyildiz (1) Mustafa Cem Algin (2) Yusuf Aydin (1) Abdulrazak Abyad (3) Lesley Pocock (4) (1) Specialist of Internal Medicine, MD (2) Specialist of General Surgery, MD (3) Middle-East Academy for Medicine of Aging, MD (4) medi+WORLD International Correspondence: Mehmet Rami Helvaci, MD 07400, Alanya, Turkey Phone: 00-90-506-4708759 Email: mramihelvaci@hotmail.com Abstract Background: There may be some hepatic indica- tors of metabolic syndrome. We tried to understand whether or not there is an association between alanine aminotransferase (ALT) value and excess weight. Methods: We took consecutive patients below the age of 70 years to avoid debility induced weight loss in elders. Patients were divided into three groups as normal weight, overweight, and obesity. Results: The study included 47 females and 82 males, totally. Although the nonsignifcant differences according to the mean age between the three groups (p>0.05 for all), female ratio showed signifcant increases from the overweight towards the obesity groups (28.3% versus 50.0%, p<0.001). Although the presence of signifcant dif- ferences according to the body mass index and body weight between the three groups (p<0.000 for all), there was a signifcant increase according to the mean ALT value only from the normal weight towards the overweight groups (39.7 versus 53.5 U/L, p<0.001), but not from the overweight towards the obesity groups (53.5 versus 53.5 U/L, p>0.05). Interestingly, the same trend was also present for dyslipidemia, and prevalence of dyslipidemia was higher in the overweight than the normal weight groups (45.2% versus 25.0%, p<0.001), but there was a nonsignifcant difference between the overweight and obesity groups (45.2% versus 37.5%, respec- tively, p>0.05). Conclusion: Higher ALT value in serum may indicate excess weight and dyslipidemia. On the other hand, there were nonsignifcant differences according to mean ALT value and prevalence of dyslipidemia between the overweight and obesity groups. Key words: Alanine aminotransferase, overweight, obesity, hepatosteatosis, dyslipidemia, metabolic syndrome Please cite this article as: Helvaci M. et al. Alanine aminotransferase indicates excess weight and dyslipidemia. World Family Medicine. 2017; 15(9):13-17. DOI: 10.5742/ MEWFM.2017.93095