Commentary
To reduce cardiovascular disease (CVD) risk as much as possible, current guidelines recommend optimising LDL cholesterol management based on an individual’s CVD risk level. The risk of CVD among NAFLD patients is likely to be higher than it is in normal individuals. But it is not known whether people with NAFLD are less likely to achieve optimal management of LDL-cholesterol than those without NAFLD. J.-H. Lee et al. (Nowon Eulji Medical Center, Seoul, Korea) aimed to investigate the longitudinal effect of NAFLD on the management of LDL-cholesterol in 5610 adults from the Korean Genome and Epidemiology Study.
Compared with controls, patients with biopsy proven NAFLD had significantly increased cancer incidence, due primarily to HCC, whereas the contribution of extrahepatic cancers was modest. Although HCC risk was highest with cirrhosis, substantial excess risk was also found with noncirrhotic fibrosis and comorbid diabetes.
