In February 2020 researchers from the USA published the results of their study to assess the association between dietary patterns and risk of non-alcoholic fatty liver disease according to cirrhosis status in a group of African American, Japanese American, Latino, Native Hawaiian and white individuals. A total of 32,251 individual were involved in the study. Dietary information was collected via a food frequency questionnaire and used to calculate a dietary score for the following four diets: Healthy Eating Index-2015, Alternative Healthy Eating Index-2010, alternate Mediterranean diet and Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension (DASH) diet. Medicare claims, going back over 7 years, were used to identify diagnoses of non-alcoholic fatty liver disease. Results showed that over this time span there were 2,959 diagnoses of non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (509 with cirrhosis; 2,450 without cirrhosis). A total of 29,292 individuals therefore acted as a control group. An analysis revealed that higher scores for the Healthy Eating Index-2015 and DASH diets were associated with a lower risk of non-alcoholic fatty liver disease. It was also noted that whilst there were no differences by sex or race/ethnicity, the association was stronger for individuals with cirrhosis than for those without cirrhosis. There did not appear to be any association between an alternate Mediterranean dietary score and risk of non-alcoholic fatty liver disease.
Park SY et al. Diet Quality Association with Nonalcoholic Fatty Liver Disease by Cirrhosis Status: The Multiethnic Cohort. Curr Dev Nutr. 2020 Feb 20;4(3):nzaa024.