Distributed under Creative Commons CC-BY 4.0 Alcohol consumption and risk of fatty liver disease: a meta-analysis

Abstract

ABSTRACT Background. Observational studies have shown inconsistent results regarding alcohol consumption and risk of fatty liver. We performed a meta-analysis of published literature to investigate the association between alcohol consumption and fatty liver disease (FLD). Methods. We searched Medline, Embase, Web of Science, and several Chinese databases, identifying studies that reported an association between alcohol consumption and the risk of FLD. Results. A total of 16 studies with 76,608 participants including 13 cross-sectional studies, two cross-sectional following longitudinal studies, and one cohort study met the inclusion criteria. For light to moderate alcohol consumption (LMAC), there was a 22.6% reduction in risk of FLD (odds ratio [OR] = 0.774, 95% confidence interval CI [0.695-0.862], P <0.001), and subgroup analysis showed that a greater reduction in risk of FLD was found in the female drinkers (30.2%) and the drinkers with BM