Fatty liver index as a predictive marker for the development of diabetes: A retrospective cohort study using Japanese health check-up data

Fatty liver is associated with incident diabetes, and the fatty liver index (FLI) is a surrogate marker for non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD). We aimed to determine whether or not FLI was associated with incident diabetes in relation to obesity and prediabetic levels in the general Japanese population. This was a retrospective study using the Japanese health check-up database of one health insurance from FY2015 to FY2018. This study included 28,991 individuals with prediabetes. First, we stratified all participants into two groups: "high-risk," comprising patients with HbA1c >6.0%, and "standard," comprising the rest. Subsequently, we divided them into four groups according to FLI (