Increased risk of cerebrovascular accident related to non-alcoholic fatty liver disease: a meta-analysis

Recent published studies on the association between non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) and cerebrovascular accident (CVA) risk have yielded conflicting findings. The aim of our study was to identify the potential association by pooling all available publications. A total of nine independent studies were included into our study. The pooled odd ratio (OR) with 95% confidence interval (95% CI) was calculated to weigh the strength for the relationship between NAFLD and CVA risk. We also conducted stratified analyses by study design, ethnicity and disease classification for further elucidation. The pooled results of the present meta-analysis showed that NAFLD was related to increased risk of CVA (OR = 2.32, 95% CI 1.84–2.93, P < 0.001). Besides, NAFLD is associated with increased risk of CVA among both Caucasians (OR = 2.27, 95% CI 1.77–2.90, P < 0.001) and Asians (OR = 2.81, 95% CI 1.43–5.51, P = 0.003). Moreover, the significant association was also observed in case-control studies (OR = 2.73, 95% CI 1.67–4.48, P < 0.001) and cohort studies (OR = 2.22, 95% CI 1.71–2.89, P < 0.001), respectively. In addition, NAFLD was shown to correlate with increased risk of cerebral hemorrhage (OR = 1.85, 95% CI 1.05–3.27, P = 0.034) and the ischemic stroke (OR = 2.51, 95% CI 1.92–3.28, P < 0.001). In conclusion, our findings firstly provide strong evidence for a risk effect of NAFLD on CVA development.