People with HIV and non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) are more likely to have abnormal levels of various metabolic risk factors, including low HDL cholesterol, high triglycerides and a high body-mass index (BMI), Contagion Live reports.

Presenting their findings at the Annual Meeting of the American Association for the Study of Liver Diseases in San Francisco (The Liver Meeting), researchers identified a cohort of people with HIV through the Partners HealthCare Research Patient Data Registry, including 97 people with NAFLD and 135 without the liver condition.

Compared with those without NAFLD, those with the condition were more likely to have obstructive sleep apnea, high blood pressure, diabetes, low HDL cholesterol, high triglycerides and cardiovascular disease.

After adjusting the data to account for various factors that might have influenced NAFLD risk the researchers found that having a CD4 count below 200 was associated with a 3.8-fold increased risk of NAFLD.

To read the Contagion Live article, click here.