Table 2.

Comparisons between fatty liver and fatty pancreas.

	Similarities	Differences	Characteristics
Embryology	Endoderm [118]
Vagal motor neuron origin	Amygdala [119]
Post-transplant/post-operation complications.	Increase [120,121]
Fat deposition			Pancreas seems to be more susceptible to fat deposition compared with the liver [122]; 68% subjects with fatty pancreas harbored fatty liver, while up to 97% subjects with fatty liver had fatty pancreas [21]; Fatty pancreas is even considered the first site of ectopic lipid deposition [15]; NAFPD was shown to precede the development of NAFLD, and may serve as a metabolic risk marker [123].
Histology		Fatty liver: triglycerides in hepatocytes; Fatty pancreas: triglycerides in adipocytes [122].
Fibrosis		10.3% of NAFLD patients: advanced fibrosis; NAFPD: may or may not associated [18,123,124,125]; Transient elastography; is a good noninvasive test to assess fibrosis in NAFLD but not for NAFPD [12].
Metabolism		Liver is an organ that takes up, oxidizes, synthesizes and exports fatty acids. The pancreas does not have those functions [35].	Liver fat volume fractions > pancreatic fat volume to correlate with insulin resistance and β-cell function [127].
Proposed progression	NAFL → NASH → HCC; NAFP → NASP→ PDAC [21].
s/p corrected for BMI		Association between fatty liver and fatty pancreas vanished [21].
s/p bariatric surgery		Fat loss in the liver and the pancreas seem to be independent [21,87].
Weight loss			More rapid decrease in triglycerides inside pancreatic and hepatic cells than inside adipocytes between pancreatic cells [90]; Pancreatic fat loss is mainly associated with improved lipid, rather than glycemic profiles [91].

NAFL: non-alcoholic fatty liver; NASH: non-alcoholic steatohepatitis; HCC: hepatocellular carcinoma; NAFP: non-alcoholic fatty pancreas; NASP: non-alcoholic steatopancreatitis; PDAC: pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma.