Could the Fatty Liver Index Predict Hypertension?

The fatty liver index might be a useful measure when predicting hypertension in patients with non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD), according to a new study.

Researchers conducted the study to further understand how NAFLD affects the development of hypertension.
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To conduct their study, researchers examined 1521 participants, aged 40 to 70 years, in the Korean Genome and Epidemiology Study on Atherosclerosis Risk of Rural Areas in the Korean General Population (KoGES-ARIRANG). Each participant filled out a standardized health and lifestyle questionnaire and had a health exam at baseline and at a 2.6-year follow-up.

Researchers measured patients’ FLI to determine whether they had NAFLD. An FLI of less than 30 indicated patients didn’t have NAFLD; an FLI between 30 and 59 indicated they had intermediate FLI; and an FLI of more than 60 indicated they had NAFLD.

Of the 1521 patients, 72% did not have NAFLD, 20% had intermediate FLI, and 8% had NALFD.

At follow-up, 10% of patients developed hypertension. Their FLI values were significantly higher than those who didn’t develop hypertension. Those with a higher FLI were more likely to be male, current smokers, obese, and insulin resistant.

“Our findings suggest that fatty liver index, a simple surrogate indicator of fatty liver disease, might be useful for identifying subjects at high risk for incident hypertension in clinical practice,” researchers concluded.

—Amanda Balbi

Reference

Huh JH, Ahn SV, Koh SB, et al. A prospective study of fatty liver index and incident hypertension: the KoGES-ARIRANG study. PLOS One. Published online November 30, 2015. http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0143560.