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Today's lifestyle is characterized by an abundance of calories, reduced physical activity and increased life expectancy, which has triggered the incidence of obesity in epidemic proportions in recent decades, and is particularly alarming in the child population. This increase in obesity incidence is associated with a series of metabolic pathologies, including type 2 diabetes mellitus, non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) and atherosclerosis, which have led to research projects dedicated to clarifying the molecular mechanisms that trigger them. This clustering of metabolic and cardiovascular risk factors is known as Metabolic Syndrome (MS), so NAFLD is considered the hepatic manifestation of this syndrome. Indeed, NAFLD is the most common chronic liver disease among adults and children around the world whose prevalence between diabetic and obese individuals it is around 65-80% compared to 20-30% of the general population. While in most of NAFLD patients this liver disease is usually asymptomatic, only presenting a simple accumulation of fat in the hepatocyte (NAFL), approximately a 50% of patients end up developing chronic liver inflammation or steatohepatitis (NASH) with variable states of concomitant fibrosis, which in turn can lead to more severe conditions of liver disease such as cirrhosis, portal hypertension and even hepatocellular carcinoma. The early diagnosis and treatment of hepatic steatosis are important to prevent the progression to an advanced states of the liver disease. Since NAFLD is usually asymptomatic at the time of diagnosis, the determination of the lipid content of the liver can be an important challenge in terms of identification, treatment and control of the progression of the disease. Currently there is no validated non-invasive method that quantifies the probability of advanced histological disease in NAFLD or the progression from one histological state to another. Moreover, there are no proven effective treatments for NAFLD, so the therapeutic approaches are based on changes in lifestyle, diet, exercise, specific treatments for liver dysfunction and the risk factors, such as obesity, hyperlipidemia and diabetes. Our laboratory develops a translational research focused on the study of the molecular basis of Metabolic Syndrome and its comorbidities, focusing on the search for new molecular targets involved in the progression of metabolic, hepatic and vascular damage which might contribute to the development of new treatments and/or might lead to the generation of new direct biomarkers for a non-invasive diagnosis of different states of NAFLD.