Newswise—Nonalcoholic fatty liver disease, or NAFLD, which affects roughly 100 million Americans, costs the United States health-care system $32 billion annually, according to a first-of-its-kind study by Intermountain Healthcare researchers on the economic impact of the disease.

The prevalence of NAFLD mirrors the rising trend of obesity in the United States. Globally, one in four people are living with the disease, which results when there is buildup of extra fat in liver cells that is not caused by alcohol. NAFLD is now the most common form of chronic liver disease.

For comparison purposes, stroke costs the United States about $34 billion annually, roughly the same amount as NAFLD, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Results of the research were presented during the Digestive Disease Week annual conference in Washington, DC.

Identifying the economic burden of NAFLD brings attention to the real need for readily available treatments that will save money and lives, according to the researchers.

For the study, researchers at Intermountain Healthcare's Intermountain Medical Center in Salt Lake City examined medical records during a 10-year period (2005-2015) and identified 4,569 patients diagnosed with NAFLD. A control group of 12,486 patients with no diagnosis of the disease was identified for comparison purposes.

Using integrated data from SelectHealth, the health insurance arm of Intermountain Healthcare, researchers analyzed the health-care costs per patient and overall costs per year in both groups. The costs were then extrapolated to a national scale, which indicated an economic burden of $32 billion annually for the US.

Costs of the disease include:

•Inpatient hospitalization and outpatient appointments
•Emergency room visits
•Organ transplantation
•Mortality
•Medical procedures or new diagnoses
•New medications or changes to existing medications

“Our research is the first real-world estimate on actual health-care utilization associated with NAFLD in the United States,” said Richard Gilroy, MD, medical director of the hepatology and liver transplant program at Intermountain Medical Center. “The results highlight the major problem we face today and the potential tsunami we will encounter if we choose to not address the causes of NAFLD now.”