Response to Comment on Tang et al. Effects of Insulin Glargine and Liraglutide Therapy on Liver Fat as Measured by Magnetic Resonance in Patients With Type 2 Diabetes: A Randomized Trial. Diabetes Care 2015;38:1339-1346.

Shan et al. (1) raise important points regarding treatment duration, sample size, mean values of magnetic resonance (MR)-based biomarkers, and severity of liver steatosis in our study (2). The 12-week duration of our study was justified by the exploratory aim to compare two second-line injectable treatment alternatives on liver steatosis as measured by MR-based techniques. To acknowledge that the study duration was too short to address the long-term effects on liver steatosis, we preemptively stated in our discussion that “a longer study would have favored GLP-1 agonist therapy in terms of body weight loss and, possibly, a concomitant reduction in the liver fat fraction” …