Thursday June 2, 2016 (foodconsumer.org) -- It's known that hepatitis B and C viruses, aflatoxin B, and alcohol drinking can all damage the liver and in severe cases, the damage can lead to the formation of liver cancer.  

A new Indian study now finds that some foods, lifestyle and certain health conditions are linked to the development of non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD).

For the study, researchers using principal component analysis to compare 464 NAFLD patients with 181 control patients who did not have NAFLD to examine how Indians' lifestyle and dietary risk factors may affect the risk of NAFLD.

They found NAFLD patients had higher body mass index, higher waist to hip ratio and higher waist to height ratio, compared to controls.  NAFLD patients also had significantly higher fasting blood sugar and triglyceride levels than controls.  The majority (over 90%) of NAFLD patients lived a sedentary life and had higher HOMA-IR.

In terms of dietary risk factors, non-vegetarian diet (eating meat/fish), fried foods, spicy foods and TEA were associated with higher risk of NAFLD.

Certain health conditions including family history of metabolic syndrome, diabetes mellitus, hypertension, snoring, and sleep apnoea syndrome were also associated with higher risk for NAFLD.  

Comment:  Interestingly, the authors did not mention high intake of sugar and fat, which may not be as common as in the U.S.  Previous studies suggest that taking probiotics, chlorella supplements and omega-3 fatty acids may help prevent or treat NAFLD. (David Liu)

Source: Singh SP, Singh A, Misra D, Misra B, Pati GK, Panigrahi MK, Kar SK, Bhuyan P, Pattnaik K, Meher C, Agrawal O, Rout N, Swain M, Aich P.  Risk Factors Associated With Non-Alcoholic Fatty Liver Disease in Indians: A Case-Control Study.  J Clin Exp Hepatol. 2015 Dec;5(4):295-302.