Methodologies for investigating natural medicines for the treatment of nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD).

Non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) is emerging as a prominent condition in Western countries. In this review we describe the characteristics and current treatments of NAFLD and discuss opportunities for developing new therapeutic management approaches, with a particular emphasis on development of animal studies and in vitro assays for identification of components of natural product medicines. The main manifestation of NAFLD is hepatic lipid accumulation in the form of lipid droplets (LDs), known as hepatic steatosis (fatty liver).