Non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) constitutes an increasingly prevalent liver disorder and has been suggested to be the hepatic manifestation of the metabolic syndrome . At present, NAFLD is assuming epidemic proportions affecting more than 25% of the world’s population, likely related to a concurrent rise in the prevalence of obesity and type 2 diabetes , although an increasing proportion of normal weight individuals are also affected pointing towards dyslipidemia as an important independent risk factor . NAFLD denotes a broad range of liver pathologies, spanning from simple hepatic steatosis, to advanced non-alcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH), which without intervention may progress to transplant-requiring cirrhosis and hepatocellular carcinoma. Whereas simple hepatic steatosis is mainly characterized by lipid accumulation in > 5% of hepatocytes, NASH is a condition further complicated by lobular inflammatory infiltrations and the presence of ballooning hepatocytes with or without concurrent fibrosis .