Research
Hormonal
Cardiovascular disease (CVD) is the leading cause of death in NAFLD patients with advanced fibrosis, independent of liver-related mortality.
If you have advanced fatty liver disease, your biggest risk to life is not liver failure, but heart disease. You must aggressively manage cardiovascular risk factors: control blood pressure, manage cholesterol, and keep blood sugar in check. Regular cardiovascular screening is essential.
GoodSupportsHIGH confidence
The increase in mortality in this subgroup was largely driven by cardiovascular disease (CVD) (adjusted hazard ratio 2.7 to 3.5).
Why this rating
Supported by large cohort studies (NAHNES) with long follow-up and meta-analyses.
Source
The Natural Course of Non-Alcoholic Fatty Liver Disease
Luis Calzadilla Bertot et al. · International Journal of Molecular Sciences · 2016
DOI 10.3390/ijms17050774
narrative_reviewCited 625×
Read the paper DOI resolved against Crossref · corpus check 2026-06-10
More from this paper
- In patients with Non-Alcoholic Fatty Liver Disease (NAFLD), the presence and severity of liver fibrosis, rather than the presence of steatohepatitis (NASH) itself, is the primary predictor of liver-related and overall mortality.Good
- Genetic polymorphisms in PNPLA3 (rs738409) and TM6SF2 (rs58542926) are associated with an increased risk of advanced fibrosis in NAFLD patients, independent of metabolic variables.Good
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