• Posted May 21, 2026

Fatty Liver Disease Increases Heart Attack Risk, Study Says

Fatty liver disease is dangerous for the heart as well as the liver, a new study says.

People with fatty liver disease have nearly doubled rates of heart attack and other heart health emergencies, researchers reported May 20 in the journal Clinical Gastroenterology and Hepatology.

That’s because they have higher levels of artery-clogging plaques that are prone to rupture, which can cause a heart attack or stroke by blocking blood flow to the heart or brain, researchers said.

“Our findings highlight that fatty liver disease is not only a liver condition but also an important marker of heart disease risk,” lead researcher Dr. Jan Brendel said in a news release. Brendel is a postdoctoral research fellow at Mass General Brigham Heart and Vascular Institute in Boston.

As many as 40% of U.S. adults have fatty liver disease, researchers said in background notes.

This accumulation of fat in the liver increases a person’s risk of liver scarring and liver cancer, but experts increasingly suspect it might have farther-ranging effects on health as well.

For the new study, researchers analyzed data from more than 3,600 participants in a large-scale study of patients treated for chest pain.

CT scans evaluated both the level of arterial plaque in the patients’ bodies, as well as whether they had fatty liver disease.

Researchers found that just over 25% of the patients had fatty liver disease.

Overall, patients with fatty liver disease had 15% higher levels of arterial plaque than those without fatty liver, researchers found.

Those patients also had 24% higher levels of noncalcified arterial plaque, a type of plaque that hasn’t hardened in place and thus poses a higher risk of rupturing and triggering a blood clot.

During about two years of follow-up, patients with fatty liver were more likely to experience a major heart health problem, 4.1% compared to 2.5%. These included death, heart attack or hospitalization for chest pain.

Fatty liver disease remained associated with a 69% higher risk of these heart health problems, even after researchers accounted for other heart risk factors, the study found.

Noncalcified arterial plaque accounted for 11% of the increased heart risk associated with fatty liver disease, researchers concluded.

They said future studies should look into whether cholesterol-lowering statins or weight-loss GLP-1 meds might reduce this heart risk among people with fatty liver disease.

More information

Johns Hopkins Medicine has more on fatty liver disease.

SOURCE: Mass General Brigham, news release, May 20, 2026