Nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) is now the most common cause of abnormal liver enzyme levels in the United States. Several characteristics of the metabolic syndrome are also observed in patients with NAFLD and it has been suggested that hepatic insulin resistance could be the common feature between the two. Since there is a relationship between cardiorespiratory fitness and metabolic syndrome, this study aimed to examine health-related fitness and physical activity participation of patients with NAFLD. No significant differences were detected in any of the physiological measures among the steatosis groups and all groups demonstrated below average age-predicted cardiorespiratory fitness estimated by VO2peak. However, a worse cardiorespiratory fitness was associated with increasing NAFLD activity score and with disease severity by nonalcoholic steatohepatitis diagnosis. Therefore, results of this study provide evidence that patients with NAFLD had suboptimal health-related fitness and physical activity participation.
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