ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Nutr.
Sec. Clinical Nutrition
Volume 12 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fnut.2025.1582527
This article is part of the Research TopicNutriomic Analysis of Food and Functional Compounds for MAFLD PreventionView all 6 articles
Sex-specific effect of dietary fatty acids on nonalcoholic fatty liver disease
Provisionally accepted
- The First Affiliated Hospital of Ningbo University, Ningbo, China
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Background: Non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) is the most common chronic hepatic disease worldwide. Dietary fatty acid is tightly associated with the development of non-alcoholic fatty liver diseaseNAFLD but few large-scale and in-depth clinical researches have focused on the issue.Methods: We conducted a retrospective case-control study based on the data from the 2017-2018 cycle of the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES).Results: A total of 2470 adult participants were included in this study. Logistic regression analysis showed that dietary fatty acids were positively associated with non-alcoholic fatty liver diseaseNAFLD (odds ratio (OR) and 95% confidence interval (CI) > 1 and P < 0.05) except for polyunsaturated fatty acid. Subgroup analysis stratified by age stage and weight grade revealed that aforementioned association was significant only in individuals aged group 37-55 and those classified as obesitye. In addition, all the fatty acid related ratios (the ratio of unsaturated fatty acids to saturated fatty acidsRUS, the ratio of polyunsaturated fatty acid to saturated fatty acidRPS, the ratio of monounsaturated fatty acids to saturated fatty acidsRMS, the ratio of polyunsaturated fatty acids to monounsaturated fatty acidsRPM) showed protective effects against the onset and steatosis severity of non-alcoholic fatty liver diseaseNAFLD in men, as evidenced by stratified logistic regression analysis (all the odds ratioOR [95% confidence intervalCI] < 1 and P < 0.05) and smooth curve fittings.Conclusion: These findings suggest that dietary fatty acids modification could serve as a preventive strategy for male non-alcoholic fatty liver diseaseNAFLD. Increasing the proportion of unsaturated fatty acids in the diet, especially polyunsaturated fatty acids, is promising to prevent non-alcoholic fatty liver diseaseNAFLD in middle-aged obese men.
Keywords: Non-alcoholic fatty liver disease, Fatty Acids, steatosis, Sex, age
Received: 24 Feb 2025; Accepted: 12 Jun 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Chen, Zhang, Pan and Shi. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence:
Yuning Pan, The First Affiliated Hospital of Ningbo University, Ningbo, China
Jiejun Shi, The First Affiliated Hospital of Ningbo University, Ningbo, China
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