Demographics and characteristics of MetALD in Japan

With the renaming of MASLD, the new concept of MASLD with increased alcohol intake (MetALD) has been introduced. MetALD is a newly defined disease, and due to the limited availability of cohorts with the data of daily alcohol intake, reports on its clinical characteristics are currently very limited. Additionally, even in large cohorts with follow-up data, abdominal ultrasound examinations may not have been performed. We are continuing the MIRACLE-J study, a cohort study of 100,000 Japanese health check-up participants with data on abdominal ultrasound examinations and daily alcohol intake, and have published several papers on MetALD. One study reported that alcohol consumption and systolic blood pressure in MASLD and MAFLD were independent factors for the progression of liver fibrosis as assessed by FIB-4 in SLD. Another study reported that multiple CMRFs are important for the onset of MASLD regardless of sex or obesity. In this Japanese cohort study, low HDL cholesterol in women and high triglyceridemia in men were the most important risk factors, particularly in the non-obese group. Additionally, we are currently investigating the role of the Fatty Liver Index in MASLD, MetALD, and ALD. In this section, we will provide an overview of the clinical characteristics, diagnosis, and treatment of MetALD, including our data.