Mendelian randomization prioritizes abdominal adiposity as an independent causal factor for liver fat accumulation and cardiometabolic diseases

Gagnon et al. perform a Mendelian randomization study to investigate whether excess liver fat underpins adiposity’s effect on cardiometabolic disease risk. They show that abdominal adiposity strongly increases disease risk independently of liver fat, suggesting that targeting liver fat alone may not be sufficient to prevent cardiometabolic disease.