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Regular aspirin use was associated with lower NAFLD prevalence
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PHILADELPHIA — Regular aspirin use was associated with a decreased prevalence of nonalcoholic fatty liver disease among men and older patients, according to data presented at the ACG Annual Scientific Meeting.
“Our biologically plausible findings suggest regular aspirin use may be associated with a lower prevalence of NAFLD, primarily in men or those who are older,” Huafeng Shen, MD, of the Nassau University Medical Center, New York, said during the presentation.
Shen and colleagues evaluated data from 11,416 adults (aged 20-74 years) who underwent ultrasonography in the Third National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey. All of the patients were divided into two groups; one group consisted of 2,889 patients with nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) and the other group consisted of 8,527 patients who served as controls. Aspirin use was determined by calculating the amount of times it had been used per month: never, occasionally (between 1 and 14 times) or regularly (greater than 15 times). The dose amount per use was not included or analyzed, according to Shen.
Multivariate logistic regression analysis showed that among the male patients, NAFLD prevalence was lower with occasional aspirin use (OR=0.58; 95% CI, 0.46-0.74) and regular aspirin use (OR=0.32; 95% CI, 0.23-0.45). Overall, women who used aspirin regularly had an OR of 0.80 (95% CI, 0.56-1.14).
NAFLD was inversely associated with occasional aspirin use (OR=0.74; 95% CI, 0.56-0.99) and regular use (OR=0.21; 95% CI, 0.14-0.30) among patients older than 60 years of age, but was not inversely associated with young patients.
According to Shen, young patients had a higher clearance against older subjects and women experienced more urinary excretion of aspirin and its metabolites compared with men.
As a result, younger or female patients “may require higher aspirin doses to achieve a drug effect against NAFLD,” he said.
For more information:
Shen H. Abstract 28. Presented at: Annual ACG Scientific Meeting, Oct. 20-22, 2014; Philadelphia, PA.
Disclosure: Relevant financial disclosures were not provided by the researchers.