Title

Prevalence of Non-alcoholic fatty liver disease using fatty liver index (FLI) among health care workers - A cross sectional study

Authors

Suriyaa Ravichandran¹, Nithin Theckumparampil², Ravindhra Bharathi Govindan3 & Meenakshi Vedavyasan¹*

Affiliation

¹Department of Biochemistry, Pondicherry Institute of Medical Sciences, Pondicherry, India; ²Department of Radiodiagnosis, Pondicherry Institute of Medical Sciences, Pondicherry, India; ³Department of Family Medicine, Pondicherry Institute of medical Sciences, Pondicherry, India; *Corresponding author

Email

Suriyaa Ravichandran - E-mail: rsuriyaa3@gmail.com
Nithin Theckumparampil - E-mail: drnithint@gmail.com
Ravindhra Bharathi - E-mail: drravindhrabharathi@gmail.com
Meenakshi Vedavyasan - E-mail: meenakshiv1528@gmail.com

Article Type

Research Article

Date

Received August 1, 2025; Revised August 31, 2025; Accepted August 31, 2025, Published August 31, 2025

Abstract

Healthcare workers (HCWs) have faced increased risk of life-style related disorders such as non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) due to stress and workload following the COVID-19 pandemic. Therefore, it is of interest to evaluate the prevalence of NAFLD and risk factors among 184 Indian HCWs aged over 40 using a non-invasive Fatty Liver Index (FLI) as a diagnostic tool. NAFLD prevalence was 25.7% (95% CI: 19.8–32.5) using an FLI cut-off ≥60, with significant associations found for age, obesity, dyslipidemia, and metabolic syndrome. While no significant association was seen with HbA1c or sex, FLI showed fair agreement with abdominal ultrasonography (kappa = 0.31), supporting its potential as a practical cost-effective tool for large-scale screening rather than a confirmatory diagnostic tool. Given the growing NAFLD burden in high-risk occupational groups, FLI can enable early detection and targeted interventions in HCWs after establishing population-specific cut-off scores.

Keywords

Non-alcoholic fatty liver disease, Fatty Liver Index, Health care workers

Citation

Ravichandran et al. Bioinformation 21(8): 2707-2711 (2025)

Edited by

P Kangueane

ISSN

0973-2063

Publisher

Biomedical Informatics

License

This is an Open Access article which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly credited. This is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License.