Compared with the NAFLD patients, the NASH patients showed lowered level of the anti-apoptotic BCL-2 protein, with a strong negative correlation between BCL-2 level and lobular inflammation (El Bassat et al., 2014), which could be explained by the increased BCL-2 concentration in hepatic steatosis, while the hepatic steatosis was a detoxification process because the free fatty acids (FFA) were directly cytotoxic to hepatocytes. Here, BCL2 is linked to metabolic dysfunction-associated steatohepatitis.