Remnant cholesterol/high-density lipoprotein cholesterol ratio is a new powerful tool for identifying non-alcoholic fatty liver disease

BACKGROUND: Remnant cholesterol/high-density lipoprotein cholesterol (RC/HDL-C) ratio has been shown to be a good predictor of metabolic disease risk, but no studies have further investigated the role of RC/HDL-C ratio in non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) patients. METHODS: The participants were 14,251 adults who underwent a physical examination, all of whom underwent abdominal ultrasonography to determine whether they had NAFLD. Receiver operating characteristic curve analysis and multivariate logistic regression models were used to assess the association between the RC/HDL-C ratio and the risk of NAFLD. RESULTS: Multivariate logistic regression analysis showed that after fully adjusting the confounding factors, the higher RC/HDL-C ratio was independently positively correlated with the risk of NAFLD. Interaction tests suggested that the effect of RC/HDL-C ratio on NAFLD was significantly affected by sex. Additionally, receiver operating characteristic curve analysis showed that the area under the curve of RC/HDL-C ratio for identifying NAFLD was 0.82, which was significantly higher than that of other conventional lipid parameters. CONCLUSIONS: This study indicates for the first time that the higher RC/HDL-C ratio in the general population may be closely related to the increased risk of NAFLD. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s12876-022-02216-x.