Accepted for/Published in: JMIR mHealth and uHealth
Date Submitted: Dec 23, 2019
Open Peer Review Period: Dec 23, 2019 - Jan 2, 2020
Date Accepted: Mar 20, 2020
(closed for review but you can still tweet)
Warning: This is an author submission that is not peer-reviewed or edited. Preprints - unless they show as "accepted" - should not be relied on to guide clinical practice or health-related behavior and should not be reported in news media as established information.
Lifestyle Intervention enabled by Mobile Technology on Weight Loss in Patients with Non-alcoholic Fatty Liver Disease: Randomized Controlled Trial
ABSTRACT
Background:
Up to 30% of Asian adult population are diagnosed with Non-alcoholic Fatty Liver Disease (NAFLD), with a higher prevalence in obese patients. Weight reduction is typically recommended but a challenge to achieve.
Objective:
We aim to evaluate the effect of a lifestyle intervention with mobile application on weight loss in NAFLD patients.
Methods:
This prospective randomized controlled trial included 108 adults with NAFLD confirmed by steatosis on ultrasound and body mass index ≥23 kg/m2 from a fatty liver outpatient clinic. They were randomly allocated to either a control group receiving standard lifestyle intervention counselling by a healthcare provider, or an intervention group utilising Nutritionist Buddy (nBuddy) mobile application in addition to standard counselling. Body weight, alanine aminotransferase (ALT), aspartate aminotransferase (AST), waist circumference, hip circumference and blood pressure were measured at baseline, 3- and 6-month.
Results:
Using intention-to-treat analysis, the intervention group had a 5-fold likelihood (RR: 5.2; P=.003; 95% CI:1.8-15.4) of achieving ≥5% weight loss when compared to control group at 6-month. The intervention group had greater reductions in weight (3.2±4.1 kg vs 0.5±2.9 kg; P<.001), waist circumference (2.9±5.0 cm vs -0.7±4.4 cm; P<.001), hip circumference (2.4±3.6 cm vs 0.4±5.0 cm; P=.03), systolic (12.4±14.8 mmHg vs 2.4±12.4 mmHg; P=.003) and diastolic blood pressure (6.8±8.9 mmHg vs 0.9±10.0 mmHg; P=.001), ALT (33.5±40.4 IU/L vs 11.5±35.2 IU/L, P=.004) and AST (17.4±27.5 U/L vs 7.4±17.6 IU/L, P=.03) at 6-month.
Conclusions:
Lifestyle intervention enabled by mobile technology can be effective in improving anthropometric indices and liver enzymes in NAFLD patients. This treatment modality has the potential to be extended to a larger scale of population. Clinical Trial: Australian New Zealand Clinical Trials Registry ACTRN12617001001381; https://www.anzctr.org.au/Trial/Registration/TrialReview.aspx?id=372937
Citation
Request queued. Please wait while the file is being generated. It may take some time.
Copyright
© The authors. All rights reserved. This is a privileged document currently under peer-review/community review (or an accepted/rejected manuscript). Authors have provided JMIR Publications with an exclusive license to publish this preprint on it's website for review and ahead-of-print citation purposes only. While the final peer-reviewed paper may be licensed under a cc-by license on publication, at this stage authors and publisher expressively prohibit redistribution of this draft paper other than for review purposes.