Role of high-salt diet in non-alcoholic fatty liver disease: a mini-review of the evidence

With the rising incidence of both obesity and diabetes, non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) has become the most common chronic liver disease worldwide. However, lifestyle intervention remains to be an effective approach for NAFLD due to lack of therapeutic medication. Recently, salt, an essential micronutrient free of calories, has raised a global concern owing to its wide-range healthy relevance. Accumulated evidence has suggested that a long-term high-salt diet (HSD) independently increases the risk of NAFLD. In the past decades, a number of studies have been reported regarding the mechanism of much investigation concerning HSD-induced NAFLD. Here, we review the updates in epidemiology and molecular mechanism of HSD-induced NAFLD and provide a novel insight into the role of HSD in the regulation of lipid metabolism.