Liang Y, Chen H, Liu Y, et al. - The transition from non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) to metabolic dysfunction-associated fatty liver disease (MAFLD) had no effect on the links to diabetes, chronic kidney disease (CKD), and cardiovascular disease (CVD). MAFLD also identified patients with metabolically fatty liver paired with high alcohol intake and hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection as having an elevated risk of incident diabetes when compared with non-fatty liver patients.

• This study comprised a total of 6,873 individuals with a 4.6-year follow-up.

• NAFLD and MAFLD were found in 40.3% and 46.7% of people, respectively.

• Furthermore, 321 (4.7%) and 156 (2.3%) of the participants had MAFLD in conjunction with excessive alcohol use and HBV infection, respectively.

• The incidence of NAFLD and MAFLD was 22.7% and 27.0%, respectively, during the follow-up period.

• MAFLD was linked to an increased risk of incident diabetes (risk ratio [RR] 2.08, 95% CI 1.72-2.52), CKD (RR 1.64, 95% CI 1.39-1.94), and CVD (hazard ratio 1.44, 95% CI 1.15-1.81). NAFLD was found to have similar correlations.

• Furthermore, MAFLD subgroups with excessive alcohol intake (RR 2.49, 95% CI 1.64-3.78) and HBV infection (RR 1.98, 95% CI 1.11-3.52) were linked to an increased risk of incident diabetes.