Table 1.

Selected meta-analyses that examined the association between nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) and cardiovascular disease

Author, publication year	Cardiovascular disease	Number of included studies	Main findings	Strength of association
Toh et al,27 2021	Coronary heart disease	38	The pooled prevalence of coronary heart disease was 44.6% (95% CI, 36.0–53.6%) among 67,070 patients with NAFLD with an odds ratio of 1.33 (95% CI, 1.21–1.45%; p < 0.0001), compared with patients without NAFLD	Moderate to strong
Tang et al,29 2022	Carotid atherosclerosis and stroke	30	35.02% (CI, 27.36–43.53%) of patients with NAFLD had carotid atherosclerosis, with an odds ratio of 3.20 (95% CI, 2.37–4.32; p < 0.0001) compared with patients without NAFLD. The prevalence of stroke was 5.04% (95% CI, 2.74–9.09%) among patients with NAFLD with an odds ratio of 1.88 (95% CI, 1.23–2.88; p = 0.02) compared with patients without NAFLD	Moderate to strong
Yong et al,106 2022	Echocardiographic-derived cardiac function and structural characteristics	41	Patients with NAFLD had poorer systolic indices with lower ejection fraction (mean difference: −0.693; 95% CI: −1.112 to −0.274; p = 0.001), and worse diastolic indices with higher E/e’ (mean difference: 1.575; 95% CI: 0.924–2.227; p < 0.001) compared with non-NAFLD patients The presence of NAFLD was associated with increased left ventricular mass (mean difference: 34.484; 95% CI: 26.236–42.732; p < 0.001) and epicardial adipose thickness (mean difference:0.1343; 95%CI: 0.055–0.214; p = 0.001)	Moderate to strong
Mantovani et al,107 2019	Atrial fibrillation	9	NAFLD was associated with an increased risk of prevalent atrial fibrillation (odds ratio 2.07, 95% CI 1.38–3.10)	Moderate
Ciardullo et al,108 2022	Hypertension	11	The presence of NAFLD was associated with an increased risk of incident hypertension (hazard ratio 1.66; 95% confidence interval [CI], 1.38–2.01; p < 0.001)	Moderate

Abbreviations: CI, confidence interval; NAFLD, nonalcoholic fatty liver disease.