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Metabolic associated fatty liver disease and bone mineral density: a cross-sectional study of the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey 2017–2018

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Abstract

Summary

This research is a cross-sectional study based on the participants aged 50 years and older from National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) database. The metabolic associated fatty liver disease (MAFLD) population has higher BMD and a lower risk of osteoporosis than those without MAFLD.

Introduction

MAFLD is a new definition presented by panel of experts based on non-alcoholic fatty liver disease in 2020. However, the link between MAFLD and bone mineral density (BMD) is uncertain. Thus, the present study aimed to investigate the relationship between MAFLD and BMD.

Methods

This cross-sectional study included subjects aged ≥ 50 years from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey 2017–2018. Multivariate linear regression models were performed to investigate the association between MAFLD and BMD. Moreover, the relationship between MAFLD and osteoporosis was assessed using multiple logistic regression models.

Results

Finally, 817 participants (non-MAFLD, n = 436; MAFLD, n = 381) were included in the final analysis. The results demonstrated that participants with MAFLD showed higher femoral BMDs than those without MAFLD, especially among males aged ≥ 50 years and females aged ≥ 65 years. Moreover, the results showed that obese men (BMI ≥ 30 kg/m2) with MAFLD had higher femoral BMDs than the control group according to subgroup analyses stratified by BMI, but this trend was not present in women. In addition, multiple logistic regression models showed that participants with MAFLD had no increased risks of osteoporosis.

Conclusion

The present study found that the MAFLD population has higher BMD and a lower risk of osteoporosis than those without MAFLD. Because the present study was a cross-sectional study, we could not identify the cause-effect relation between MAFLD and BMD. Therefore, additional research needs to be performed to explore the influences of MAFLD on bone metabolism in the future.

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Data availability

All data were extracted from National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) 2017–2018 database. The detailed information was provided on the NHANES website.

Code availability

All analyses were performed with R software, V.4.1.3 (R: a language and statistical computing environment [program]. Vienna, Austria: R Foundation for Statistical Computing, 2016) and EmpowerStats (http://www.empowerstats.com).

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Acknowledgements

We would like to express our gratitude to American Journal Experts (https://www.aje.com/) for the language editing services provided.

Funding

This study was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (81874017, 81960403, and 82060405) and Cuiying Scientific and Technological Innovation Program of Lanzhou University Second Hospital (CY2017-ZD02, CY2021-MS-A07).

Author information

Author notes

  1. Jinmin Liu and Yuchen Tang contributed equally to this work.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Orthopaedics, Lanzhou University Second Hospital, #82 Cuiyingmen, Lanzhou, 730000, Gansu, China

    Jinmin Liu, Yuchen Tang, Zhiwei Feng, Yi Chen, Xiaohui Zhang, Yayi Xia & Bin Geng

  2. Orthopaedics Key Laboratory of Gansu Province, Lanzhou, Gansu, China

    Jinmin Liu, Yuchen Tang, Zhiwei Feng, Yi Chen, Xiaohui Zhang, Yayi Xia & Bin Geng

  3. Orthopaedic Clinical Research Center of Gansu Province, Lanzhou, Gansu, China

    Jinmin Liu, Yuchen Tang, Zhiwei Feng, Yi Chen, Xiaohui Zhang, Yayi Xia & Bin Geng

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  1. Jinmin Liu
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Correspondence to Bin Geng.

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The ethics review board of the National Center for Health Statistics approved the study. The detailed information was provided on the NHANES website.

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Informed consent was obtained from all study participants. The detailed information was provided on the NHANES website.

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Liu, J., Tang, Y., Feng, Z. et al. Metabolic associated fatty liver disease and bone mineral density: a cross-sectional study of the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey 2017–2018. Osteoporos Int 34, 713–724 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00198-023-06687-w

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00198-023-06687-w

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