Lean patients with NAFLD have higher mortality: study
Lean patients with non-alcoholic fatty liver disease have higher mortality rates than their overweight and obese counterparts, US doctors have found.
This is despite lean individuals in their retrospective cohort having a lower incidence of cirrhosis and diabetes, as well as similar rates of cardiovascular disease and cancer.
The University of Michigan–led team says the findings emphasise that lean individuals with non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) “merit the same attention in clinical practice” as those with overweight and obesity.
Their single-centre study, published in Alimentary Pharmacology and Therapeutics, identified 13,420 adults (median age 51) diagnosed with the condition between 2012 and 2021 and who had follow-up data available for longitudinal analysis.
