Five Blood Proteins Predict MASLD Up To 16 Years Before Symptoms Appear, Research Shows

GI and Hepatology News (4/30, Melville) reports research presented at Digestive Disease Week 2025 show that “the presence of five key proteins in the blood was strongly associated with the development of metabolic dysfunction-associated steatotic liver disease (MASLD) as much as 16 years before symptoms appeared.” Researchers “evaluated data on 52,952 participants enrolled in the UK Biobank between 2006 and 2010 who did not have MASLD at baseline and were followed up for up to 16.6 years.” They observed that the five blood proteins “that emerged as being robust predictive biomarkers for development of MASLD within 5 years included CDHR2, FUOM, KRT18, ACY1, and GGT1.” They found that “deviations of the proteins in plasma concentrations were observed up to 16 years prior to MASLD onset, with higher levels of the proteins at baseline associated with up to a nearly 10-times higher risk of MASLD.” Healio (4/29, Shinkle) adds that the “combined levels of the 5 specific proteins achieved 83.8% accuracy at predicting disease five years from onset and 75.6% accuracy at predicting 16 years ahead of diagnosis, according to a press release from DDW.”