In metabolic syndrome, a cluster of health disorders converge as a kind of perfect storm, putting individuals diagnosed with this medical phenomenon at greater risk for developing cardiovascular disease. Central among this group of conditions is obesity, which, along with insulin resistance, acts as a catalyst for fat to accumulate in the liver—a mounting public health problem.

Nonalcoholic fatty liver disease, a collection of obesity-related liver abnormalities, is estimated to affect one-third of the U.S. adult population, along with an alarming number of children.While health experts predict it will soon become the leading cause of liver failure and reason for transplantation, scientists are trying to understand why fat collects in and, subsequently, damages the liver.

One of the country’s most prominent digestive and liver disease researchers is Jay Horton, M.D., an associate professor of internal medicine and molecular genetics at University of Texas (UT) Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas. In 2004, Dr. Horton was named a principal investigator of the Taskforce for Obesity Research at UT Southwestern to explore the behavioral, metabolic and molecular mechanisms linking obesity and metabolic syndrome.