59-PUB: Serum Vitamin D Levels Are Negatively Associated with Severe Nonalcoholic Fatty Liver Disease in Individuals with Overweight/Obesity—A Cross-Sectional Study

Introduction and Objective: The role of vitamin D in the occurrence and progression of nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) remains contradictory. In addition, there are few studies on fat distribution in the abdomen and vitamin D. Therefore, we investigated the relationship between serum vitamin D levels and abdomen fat distribution, particularly liver fat content (LFC) in subjects with overweight/obesity. Methods: 147 subjects with overweight/obesity (body mass index ≥23 kg/m2) were enrolled. All subjects were classified by vitamin D levels as either vitamin D deficiency (<20 ng/mL) or vitamin D normal (≥20 ng/mL). Magnetic resonance imaging-proton density fat fraction (MRI-PDFF) was used to measure fat accumulation in the liver, pancreas, and abdomen subcutaneous and visceral. Results: LFC was significantly higher in the vitamin D deficient group than in the normal vitamin D group (P =0.040). Additionally, there was a significant decrease in serum vitamin D levels with increasing LFC and subcutaneous adipose tissue (P <0.05), while no difference was found in pancreatic fat content, abdominal fat, or visceral adipose tissue among the groups. Meanwhile, the prevalence of severe hepatic steatosis in the lowest vitamin D levels group was significantly higher than in the highest vitamin D quartile (50% vs. 18.9%, Q1 vs. Q4, P =0.042). Further regression analysis showed that the multivariate-adjusted OR for the prevalence of severe NAFLD in the highest quartile was 0.171 (Q4 vs. Q1, 95%CI 0.047~0.612, P =0.007). Conclusion: A significantly negative relationship between serum vitamin D and severe NAFLD was observed in patients with overweight/obesity. Serum vitamin D levels may be applied to assess the risk of severe NAFLD in patients with overweight/obesity. Disclosure J. Ma: None. Y. Li: None. Z. Wang: None. M. Yang: None. J. Yue: None. J. Chen: None. Y. Qi: None. Q. Liu: None. Q. Lu: None. Funding China International Medical Foundation (Z-2017-26-2202-4)