The Negative Association Between NAFLD Severity and CKD in a Non-Diabetic Gouty Population

Nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) and chronic kidney disease (CKD) share common pathogenic mechanisms and risk factors. We aim to evaluate the association between NAFLD and CKD in a non-diabetic gouty population. The retrospective cross sectional study was performed on 1049 non-diabetic gouty participants, who were hospitalized between 2014 and 2020, across 4 districts in Shandong, China. Demographic and clinical characteristics of the study population were collected. The odds ratios (OR) and corresponding 95% confidence intervals (CI) about the NAFLD severity determined by ultrasonography were obtained by multiple logistic regression analysis. An unexpectedly inverse relationship was found between NAFLD severity and the risk of CKD in people with gout. Multivariate logistic regression analysis demonstrated that a higher degree of NAFLD severity is independently associated with a lower risk of CKD in people with gout, after adjusted for age, sex, smoking, gout duration, and metabolic risk factors including obesity, hypertension, hyperglycemia, hyperuricemia, and dyslipidemia, with OR 0.392 (95% CI 0.248-0.619, p<0.001), 0.379 (95% CI 0.233-0.616, p<0.001) and 0.148 (95% CI 0.043-0.512, p=0.003) in participants with mild, moderate, and severe NAFLD, respectively, compared to those without NAFLD. We also observed a weakened association of serum uric acid (SUA) with metabolic risk factors and NAFLD under circumstances of CKD in people with gout (r=-0.054, p=0.466). In conclusion, the presence and severity of NAFLD were negatively associated with the risk of CKD in the non-diabetic gouty population.