Renamed, common liver diseases might get fairer shake at treatment, researchers hope
Liver diseases have become more common and more complex. Experts decided it was long past time to get "fatty" and "non-alcoholic" out of the disease names.
A slate of liver diseases got a rebrand this year. Experts hope the change can generate more conversation — and research interest — for conditions that still lack treatments.
A group of over 200 physicians, public health experts, industry representatives, regulatory officials, and patient advocates made the call in a supermajority vote: Non-alcoholic fatty liver disease, or NAFLD, would be renamed metabolic dysfunction-associated steatotic liver disease. MASLD for short (pronounced MAA-zuld).
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