| Abstract: | BACKGROUND & AIMS: Whether nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) is associated with risk of incident atrial fibrillation (AF) independent of established cardiovascular risk factors remains controversial. We aimed to provide a quantitative estimate of the association between NAFLD and risk of AF after adjustment for cardiometabolic risk factors. METHODS: In this study, we searched PubMed and Embase for studies published from database inception until January 31, 2020. Cohort studies reported adjusted relative risks (RRs) and 95% confidence intervals (CIs) for AF of NAFLD compared with non-NAFLD were included for analysis. RESULTS: A total of 6 cohort studies were included, comprising 614 673 individuals for analysis. The median follow-up duration was 10.0 years with 7271 cases of incident AF. Compared with non-NAFLD, minimally adjusted models without adjustment for cardiometabolic risk factors showed that NAFLD was associated with increased risk of AF (RR 1.65, 95% CI 1.23-2.20, I2  = 63.0%). After adjustment for multiple cardiometabolic risk factors, the association between NAFLD and risk of AF was still higher than that in non-NAFLD (RR 1.19, 95% CI 1.04-1.31, I2  = 54.0%). There was significant heterogeneity for the risk of AF between minimally and maximally adjusted models (I2  = 77.1%, P for heterogeneity = 0.04). Compared with non-NAFLD, the absolute risk increase in NAFLD for AF was 1.3 (95% CI 0.5-2.1) per 1000 person-years. CONCLUSIONS: NAFLD is associated with increased risk of incident AF. The strength of the association between NAFLD and AF is partially attributed to the co-existing cardiometabolic risk factors. |
