First-degree relatives of people with non-alcoholic fatty liver disease are much more likely to have NAFLD as well, compared with those who do not have such a history in their nuclear families, MedPage Today reports.

Researchers conducted a study of 26 people with NAFLD cirrhosis and 39 of those individuals’ first-degree relatives (siblings, parents and children), comparing them with 69 pairs of first-degree relatives who did not have cirrhosis.

Results were presented at the Annual Meeting of The American Association for the Study of Liver Diseases (AASLD) in Boston.

Eighteen percent of the first-degree relatives of those with NAFLD also had the condition, compared with just 1.4 percent of the first-degree relatives of those in the control population.

After adjusting the data for age, sex, Latino ethnicity, body-mass index (BMI) and diabetes, the researchers found that there was a 12.5-fold increased likelihood that people with NAFLD cirrhosis had first-degree relatives with the condition compared with the control group.

To read the MedPage Today article, click here.