Non-alcoholic fatty liver disease is considered a major public health concern. The prediction of individuals who can acquire this disease would be valuable. The fatty liver index (FLI) is a non-invasive approach that has shown a good capability for discriminating individuals with non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) from those without it. Thus, this study evaluated the ability of the FLI to predict new cases of NAFLD following a 7-year follow up.

This study was based on the results of follow-up on individuals who did not have NAFLD in 2009-2010, but acquired the disease by 2016-2017. A total of 2241 people who did not have NAFLD in 2009-2010 were evaluated 7 years later by ultrasound so as to diagnose new cases of NAFLD. The FLI was calculated based on data from phase 1 (performed in 2009-2010) of the cohort study. ROC analyses were performed to estimate the predictive ability of the FLI in the diagnosis of new cases of NAFLD. Logistic regression analysis was performed, in which the FLI was considered the predictor and new cases of NAFLD was the outcome.

The related AUCs for the FLI in men and women were 0.712 (95% CI=0.675-0.749) and 0.721 (95% CI=0.683-0.759), respectively. Based on the current findings, the FLI showed a significant association with NAFLD in multiple logistic regression analyses in both men and women (OR (95% CI) = 1.038 (1.029-1.047), p-value <0.001 in men and OR (95% CI) = 1.032 (1.023-1.041), p-value <0.001 in women in multiple logistic analyses).

In this study, the FLI was shown to have an acceptable capability of predicting the occurrence of new cases of NAFLD.