Exploratory analysis of the association between dietary niacin intakes and nonalcoholic fatty liver disease among US adults: 1999-2018 data analysis from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES)

Background: Previous researches have revealed the potential association between dietary niacin intakes and several diseases, but studies assessing the association between dietary niacin intakes and nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) is limited and remains unclear. This study was performed to explore the association. Methods: In this study, 10,528 participants (male: 5,257) in the 10 NHANES cycles (1999-2018) from the NHANES database were selected for the analyses. We built three logistic regression models to explore the independent association between dietary niacin intakes and NAFLD and to explore whether such association exists. Finally, a restricted cubic spline model was applied to simulate the potential nonlinear association between dietary niacin intakes and the occurrence of NAFLD.Results: The result of the fully-adjusted model suggested that ln-transformed dietary niacin intakes were significantly associated with the reduced occurrence of NAFLD. The Odd ratio (OR) of the model and its 95% confidence interval (CI) were 0.81 (0.73, 0.90). When taking the lowest quartile as a reference, the level of niacin in the highest quartile was associated with decreased prevalence of NAFLD (OR: 0.76, 95% CI: 0.63, 0.91). The restricted cubic spline plot presented a negative dose-response association between levels of daily niacin consumption and the occurrence of NAFLD (p for nonlinearity = 0.762).Conclusion: According to the results of this study, dietary niacin intakes may have a negative association with NAFLD, and more well-designed cohort studies are required in the future to confirm the obtained finding.