The global prevalence of nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) has increased by 50% in the last 3 decades with more prominence in countries with low-to-middle sociodemographical index level, Yichen Wang, MD, said during his abstract presentation at the 2022 ACG Annual Scientific Meeting and Postgraduate Course on October 26, in Charlotte, North Carolina.

Dr Wang is an internal medicine specialist at the Trinity Health of New England in Springfield, Massachusetts.

Presenting the abstract cited for the Outstanding Research Award in the liver category, Dr Wang said that NAFLD is causing “an emerging global epidemic.” Through their global burden of disease (GBD) study, Dr Wang and colleagues explained the fast-growing landscape of the disease by estimating the burden of NAFLD in 203 countries and geographic areas across the world.

For the study, the investigators collected data on prevalence, mortality, and disability-adjusted life years (DALYs) of NAFLD from 1990 to 2019 from the Global Health Data Exchange in all sex and age groups and sorted them by region and country. Furthermore, they used the sociodemographic index (SDI) to group countries and geographic areas by development (low, low-middle, middle, high-middle, and high).

The findings of the study showed the global prevalence of NAFLD increasing from 10.9% in 1990 to 16.6% in 2019. During the time frame, deaths attributed to NAFLD increased from 93,000 to 169,000, and DALYs of NAFLD increased from 2.7 million years to 4.4 million years. When sorted by SDI, the authors found that North African and Middle Eastern countries reported significant increase of prevalence of NAFLD of more than 10%.

Overall, “in 2019, an estimated 1.3 billion people were affected by NAFLD worldwide,” said Dr Wang.

The 50% increase of NAFLD's prevalence across the world from 1990 to 2019  imposes a heavy disease burden worldwide, especially in countries with low-to-middle sociodemographical index level.

“People should maintain a healthy lifestyle to avoid NAFLD,” Dr Wang concluded. “More research on prevention and treatment of NAFLD is warranted.”

—Priyam Vora

Reference:
Wang Y. Oral 65 – The global landscape of nonalcoholic fatty liver disease: Results from the global burden of disease study, 1990-2019. Oral paper presentation. Plenary session 4B – Liver. Presented at: ACG 2022 Annual scientific meeting and Postgraduate course. Charlotte, North Carolina. October 26, 2022.