Discussion
NAFLD, metabolic diseases, HC
DISORDER, DISORDERS, METABOLIC DISEASES, HOT SPOT, PATHOGENESIS
NAFLD is often accompanied with disorders of glucolipid metabolism (The study of intestinal flora has become a hot spot in the study of metabolic diseases and microorganisms has grown rapidly in the past few decades. The intestinal flora participates in the absorption and metabolism of nutrients (including the metabolism of carbohydrates, lipids, and amino acids) in the human body, which plays a strong part in maintaining fitness (As a consequence, we speculate there is a link between abnormal intestinal flora and NAFLD. With the increased understanding of the “gut-liver axis” and the popularity of fecal amplicon sequencing, the gut microbiome seems to occupy an undisputed position in the pathogenesis of NAFLD. Similar to our study, the diversity and abundance of intestinal flora in NAFLD have been shown to change to varying degrees in both animal and human studies (The clinical investigations and animal experiments have showed that TCM could reverse the dysregulation of intestinal flora and maintain the balance of intestinal micro-ecological system (We collected the stool samples of patients who were diagnosed with NAFLD and HC to examine the composition and abundance of the intestinal flora In our study, significant changes occurred in Nonetheless, our study has some shortcomings. The treatment course of NAFLD patients is relatively short, and the sample size is not enough, which leads to not obvious differences and incomplete recovery of the disorder flora after SLF treatment. In subsequent studies, we will expand the sample size to further confirm the effect of SLF on intestinal flora in NAFLD patients. In addition, we only observed the effect of SLF on different classification levels of intestinal flora in patients. In future research, we will further study the potential mechanisms of different strains of SLF.