Background: Lean individual with non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (L-NAFLD) is a prominent area of research, yet its pathogenesis and association with other diseases such as atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease remain uncertain.
Object: A retrospective study, investigate the association between non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) and carotid plaque (CP) in lean [body mass index (BMI) <24Kg/m2] and non-lean (BMI≥24Kg/m2) populations, as well as identify the related influence factors.
Method: 3,587 participants were eligible and categorized into 4 groups based on the presence with CP and BMI, binary logistic regression analysis was utilized alongside other statistical methods.
Results: L-NAFLD participants had a 1.395-fold higher risk of CP compared to lean individuals without NAFLD. Age, gender, systolic blood pressure, low-density lipoprotein cholesterol, fasting blood glucose, and Fibrosis-4 index (FIB-4) were identified as independent risk factors with cutoff values lower than the normal upper limits. However, this association was not observed among non-lean participants, regardless of confounding factors adjustment. Moreover, the impact of FIB-4 on the association of NAFLD and CP was more significant in lean CP participants (OR = 1.360 for 1.30 ~ 2.67, and OR = 2.002 for >2.67~<3.48) than in non-lean CP ones.
Conclusion: The L-NAFLD population had a higher risk of CP, while lean CP individuals experienced more severe liver fibrosis. Implementing stricter management of risk factors may improve the health status of high-risk populations.
Copyright: © 2025 Xue et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.