Objective: This study aimed to investigate how metabolic dysfunction-associated steatotic liver disease (MASLD) and body mass index (BMI) together influence the incidence of Parkinson’s disease (PD) in the general population using a population-based healthcare claims database of South Korea.
Background: Several lines of evidence suggest that individuals with MASLD have unfavorable clinical outcomes. Until now, the relationship between MASLD and risk of PD remains controversial, possibly due to varying clinical implications of MASLD subtypes based on BMI.
Method: We used data from the “National Screening Program for Transitional Ages” conducted on 66-year-old dementia-free Koreans in 2010 and 2011 to construct a retrospective cohort for the development of PD. MASLD was determined based on the fatty liver index (≥30) and the presence of metabolic components, and overweight status was defined as BMI ≥23 kg/m2. Primary outcome was the development of PD until December 2021. Multivariable Cox regression analyses were performed to evaluate the risk for the development of PD according to the presence of MASLD and overweight status.
Results: This cohort included 445,921 PD-free participants with 66-years-old at baseline. According to the presence of MASLD and overweight status, participants were categorized into four groups: overweight non-MASLD (28.8%), overweight MASLD (38.4%), lean non-MASLD (29.3%), and lean MASLD (3.6%). During the follow-up period (10.4 years), 6,240 (1.4%) individuals were newly diagnosed with PD. There was no difference in the risk of PD between the MASLD subtypes: compared to the overweight non-MASLD (reference), the adjusted hazard ratios [95% confidence interval] for PD were 1.00 [0.94–1.06] for overweight MASLD, 0.99 [0.93–1.06] for lean non-MASLD, and 1.08 [0.94–1.25] for lean MASLD.
Conclusion: The results of this study indicate the presence of MASLD does not increase the risk of PD, even when further categorizing MASLD subtypes by BMI.
Figure 1.
To cite this abstract in AMA style:
SJ. Chung, TS. Lim, J. Jeon, JK. Kim, J. Kim, PH. Lee. Metabolic dysfunction-associated steatotic liver disease, body mass index, and risk of Parkinson’s disease [abstract]. Mov Disord. 2025; 40 (suppl 1). https://www.mdsabstracts.org/abstract/metabolic-dysfunction-associated-steatotic-liver-disease-body-mass-index-and-risk-of-parkinsons-disease/. Accessed October 22, 2026.« Back to 2025 International Congress
MDS Abstracts - https://www.mdsabstracts.org/abstract/metabolic-dysfunction-associated-steatotic-liver-disease-body-mass-index-and-risk-of-parkinsons-disease/