{"doi":"10.1111/jgh.15131","title":"Use of metabolic syndrome severity to assess treatment with vitamin E and pioglitazone for non‐alcoholic steatohepatitis","abstract":"BACKGROUND AND AIM: Non-alcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH), which can lead to liver failure, requires liver biopsies to follow and is difficult to treat. Our goal was to assess metabolic syndrome (MetS) severity as a predictor of treatment success and a marker of response. METHODS: We assessed data from the Pioglitazone, Vitamin E, or Placebo for NASH Study, in which individuals with biopsy-confirmed NASH were randomized to receive pioglitazone, vitamin E, or placebo for 96 weeks. We assessed associations of a sex-specific and race/ethnicity-specific MetS severity Z-score (MetS-Z) at baseline and 48 weeks with biopsy-determined endpoint of NASH resolution at 96 weeks. RESULTS: Baseline MetS-Z was inversely associated with odds of NASH resolution (odds ratio [OR] per 1 SD of MetS-Z: 0.47, 95% confidence interval [CI] 0.28, 0.79). Decrease in MetS-Z during initial 48-week intervention was greatest for pioglitazone treatment (effect size: -0.31, 95% CI -0.15, -0.48) and for vitamin E tended toward being greater for those with versus without NASH resolution (-0.18 vs -0.05). Overall, 48-week change in MetS-Z was associated with NASH resolution (OR per 1-SD change: 0.53, 95% CI 0.33, 0.85), although this was attenuated in models that included transaminases, which remained linked to treatment success (OR by change-in-aspartate aminotransferase Z-score: 0.38, 95% CI 0.19, 0.76). CONCLUSIONS: Individuals with more severe metabolic derangement at baseline were less likely to exhibit NASH resolution, suggesting that individuals may have a threshold of MetS severity beyond which successful treatment is unlikely. As an integrated marker of metabolic abnormalities, MetS-Z was correlated with successful treatment, although transaminases were a more consistent marker of NASH resolution.","journal":"Journal of Gastroenterology and Hepatology","year":2020,"id":82748,"datarank":0.0,"base_score":0.0,"endowment":0.0,"self_citation_contribution":0.0,"citation_network_contribution":0.0,"self_endowment_contribution":0.0,"citer_contribution":0.0,"corpus_percentile":null,"corpus_rank":null,"citation_count":12,"citer_count":0,"citers_with_citation_signal":0,"citers_with_endowment":0,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"is_dataset":false,"is_dataset_confidence":0.9128,"is_data_producer":false,"deposit_databanks":null,"is_oa":true,"file_count":0,"downloads":0,"has_version_chain":false,"published_date":"2020-01-01","fair_score":null,"fair_percentile":null,"algorithm_id":"datarank_citation_only_1hop_v6","ranking_scope":"data_only","authors":[{"id":240109,"name":"Jasmine A. Mack","orcid":"0000-0001-7343-0579","position":1,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":426460,"name":"Xiaofei Chi","orcid":"0000-0001-6027-444X","position":2,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":426461,"name":"Mark D. DeBoer","orcid":"0000-0003-1462-591X","position":3,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":363710,"name":"Matthew J. Gurka","orcid":"0000-0002-3371-4582","position":0,"is_corresponding":true}],"reference_count":34,"raw_metadata":null,"created_at":"2026-07-18T21:53:48.608934Z","pmid":"32506513","pmcid":null,"fwci":null,"citation_percentile":null,"influential_citations":0,"oa_status":null,"license":null,"views":0,"total_file_size_bytes":0,"version_count":0,"fair_f":null,"fair_a":null,"fair_i":null,"fair_r":null,"fair_zscore":null,"fair_rationale":null,"fair_model":null,"fair_agent_version":null,"fair_fulltext_source":null,"fair_has_llm":null,"fair_computed_at":null,"clinical_trials":[],"software_tools":[],"db_accessions":[],"linked_datasets":[],"topics":[]}