Non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) is a major cause of chronic liver disease, with an overall prevalence of 25%–32.4% worldwide, imposing a considerable health and economic burden [1,2]. Given that it increases in parallel with growing obesity and diabetes, advanced hepatic fibrosis, and hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) among NAFLD patients, it is expected to rise further [3–5]. Experts from over 134 countries have recently advocated the definition of metabolic dysfunction-associated fatty liver disease (MAFLD) because it elucidates the underlying pathogenesis more accurately than NAFLD [6,7].
