Manuel Romero-Gómez and colleagues discuss how diet and modifiable factors can help prevent of non-alcoholic fatty liver disease and the importance of engaging all society through awareness, education, and policy change
### Key messages
Non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) is characterised by fat accumulation in hepatocytes in people who drink little or no alcohol and is strongly related to metabolic disorders like obesity, type 2 diabetes, dyslipidaemia, and arterial hypertension.1 The global prevalence of NAFLD has increased over time, now reaching more than 30% of the general adult population, with an estimated annual growth of 0.7%.2 NAFLD is a complex, heterogeneous, and dynamic disease, and progression to fibrosis (scarring of the liver) occurs in around 10-15% of patients with NAFLD.3 NAFLD is one of the main risk factors for developing liver cancer, which represents the third highest cause of death by cancer in the latest Globocan report.4
People with obesity are 3.5 times as likely to develop NAFLD,5 mainly because both diseases share common pathophysiological pathways. A diet rich in saturated fatty acids (such as ultra-processed foods, full fat dairy products, red meat, and using coconut and palm oils) and sugars supplies a large amount of fatty acids to the liver and contributes to the onset and progression of liver damage as well as …