ArticleMetabolism: clinical and experimental2020
Weight gain during early adulthood, trajectory of body shape and the risk of nonalcoholic fatty liver disease: A prospective cohort study among women.
Article in Metabolism: clinical and experimental, 2020. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 18 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
18 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 26 citations in OpenAlex.
- Risk Factors Related to the Development of Nonalcoholic Fatty Liver: A Systematic Review.Canadian journal of gastroenterology & hepatology · 2025Pooled it
- Article
- Trends of Obesity in Early Adulthood and Later Adulthood Across 196 Countries and Territories, 1990-2022.Obesity (Silver Spring, Md.) · 2026Article
- Screening, Diagnosis, Evaluation, and Staging of Obesity in Adults: Standards of Care in Overweight and Obesity-2026.BMJ open diabetes research & care · 2026Review
- Article
- Bodyweight increase since early adulthood as a risk factor for mobility decline: a 7-year longitudinal study of 10,316 Japanese adults aged ≥ 40 years.Archives of public health = Archives belges de sante publique · 2026Article
- Impact of Change, Fluctuation, or Variability in Weight on the Risk of Nonalcoholic Fatty Liver Disease in General Population: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis.Health science reports · 2025Article
- Multi-omic analysis reveals transkingdom gut dysbiosis in metabolic dysfunction-associated steatotic liver disease.Nature metabolism · 2025Article
- Laparoscopically confirmed endometriosis and the risk of incident NAFLD: a prospective cohort study.Reproductive biology and endocrinology : RB&E · 2025Article
- Association between aspirin use and the risk of incident nonalcoholic fatty liver disease.European journal of epidemiology · 2025Article
- Association of physical activity, including amount and maintenance, with the risk of HCC among patients with type 2 diabetes.JHEP reports : innovation in hepatology · 2024Article
- Weight change patterns across adulthood are associated with the risk of osteoarthritis: a population-based study.Aging clinical and experimental research · 2024Article
- Association between changes in body composition and progression of liver fibrosis in patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus.Frontiers in nutrition · 2024Article
- Association between weight change and risk of liver fibrosis in adults with type 2 diabetes.Journal of global health · 2023Article
- Article
- Metabolic (dysfunction)-associated fatty liver disease in individuals of normal weight.Nature reviews. Gastroenterology & hepatology · 2022Review
- Weight Change across Adulthood in Relation to Non-Alcoholic Fatty Liver Disease among Non-Obese Individuals.Nutrients · 2022Article
- Red meat consumption, obesity, and the risk of nonalcoholic fatty liver disease among women: Evidence from mediation analysis.Clinical nutrition (Edinburgh, Scotland) · 2022Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
10 authors at 3 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
Abstract
BACKGROUND &
aimsObesity is established as a major risk factor for the development of nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD). However, the influence of dynamic changes in adiposity over the life course on NAFLD risk remains poorly understood.
methodsWe collected data from 110,054 women enrolled in the Nurses' Health Study II cohort. Early adulthood weight was ascertained at age 18 years, and weight gain since early adulthood was defined prospectively every 2 years. We used a group-based modeling approach to identify five trajectories of body shape from age 5 years up to age 50 years. NAFLD was defined by physician-confirmed diagnoses of fatty liver, after excluding excess alcohol intake and viral hepatitis, using validated approaches.
resultsWe documented 3798 NAFLD cases over a total of 20 years of follow-up. Compared to women who maintained stable weight (±2 kg), women with ≥20 kg of adulthood weight gain had the multivariable aHR of 6.96 (95% CI, 5.27-9.18), and this remained significant after further adjusting for early adulthood BMI and updated BMI (both P trend <0.0001). Compared to women with a medium-stable body shape trajectory, the multivariable aHRs for NAFLD were, 2.84 (95% CI, 2.50-3.22) for lean-marked increase, 2.60 (95% CI, 2.27-2.98) for medium-moderate increase, and 3.39 (95% CI, 2.95-3.89) for medium-marked increase.
conclusionsBoth early adulthood weight gain and lifetime body shape trajectory were significantly and independently associated with excess risk of developing NAFLD in mid-life. Maintaining both lean and stable weight throughout life may offer the greatest benefit for the prevention of NAFLD.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.