Key result
High cardiovascular health, as measured by the Life's Essential 8 score, was associated with significantly lower odds of metabolic dysfunction-associated steatotic liver disease compared to low cardiovascular health (OR 0.21).
Why the study?
Evidence concerning the effect of cardiovascular health on the risk of metabolic dysfunction-associated steatotic liver disease is scarce.
Is higher cardiovascular health (assessed by Life's Essential 8) associated with a lower risk of metabolic dysfunction-associated steatotic liver disease in adults?
Cross-Sectional (n=5,680)
Is higher cardiovascular health (assessed by Life's Essential 8) associated with a lower risk of metabolic dysfunction-associated steatotic liver disease in adults?
Odds Ratio: 0.21 (95% CI 0.13–0.34)
Absolute Event Rate: 9.88% vs 67.28%
p-value: p=<0.001
Higher cardiovascular health, as measured by Life's Essential 8, is significantly associated with a lower prevalence of metabolic dysfunction-associated steatotic liver disease.
Better CVH may aid MASLD risk stratification; cross-sectional data leave causality unresolved.
PURPOSE: Evidence concerning the effect of cardiovascular health (CVH) on the risk of metabolic dysfunctional-associated steatotic liver disease (MASLD) is scarce. This study aimed to investigate the association between CVH and MASLD. METHODS: 5680 adults aged ≥ 20 years from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey 2017-March 2020 were included. Life's essential 8 (LE8) was applied to assess CVH. Weighted binary logistic regression was employed to calculate the odds ratio (OR) and 95% confidence interval (CI) to investigate the association of CVH with MASLD. Restricted cubic spline (RCS) was conducted to explore the dose-response association between LE8 and its subscales scores with MASLD. RESULTS: Among 5680 participants, 724, 3901, and 1055 had low, moderate, and high CVH levels, respectively, with a MASLD diagnosis prevalence of 36.83%. In the fully adjusted logistic regression model, ORs for MASLD were 0.50 (95% CI, 0.37-0.69) for participants with moderate CVH and 0.21 (95% CI, 0.13-0.34) for those with high CVH, when compared to those with low CVH (P < 0.001 for trend). OR for MASLD was 0.68 (95% CI, 0.61-0.77) for each 10-point increase in LE8 score. RCS model demonstrated a non-linear dose-response relationship between LE8 score and health factors score with MASLD, while a linear relationship was found between health behaviors score and MASLD. Subgroup analysis showed a consistent negative correlation between LE8 score and MASLD, and sensitivity analysis validated the reliability of these findings. CONCLUSIONS: Higher LE8 score was associated with a lower risk of MASLD. Encouraging adherence to optimal CVH levels may help mitigate the burden of MASLD.
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Huang et al. (2025) conducted a cross-sectional in Metabolic dysfunction-associated steatotic liver disease (MASLD) (n=5,680). High cardiovascular health (Life's Essential 8 score 80-100) vs. Low cardiovascular health (Life's Essential 8 score 0-49) was evaluated on Metabolic dysfunction-associated steatotic liver disease (MASLD) (OR 0.21, 95% CI 0.13-0.34, p=<0.001). High cardiovascular health, as measured by the Life's Essential 8 score, was associated with significantly lower odds of metabolic dysfunction-associated steatotic liver disease compared to low cardiovascular health (OR 0.21).
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