Personality disorders 3 times more likely in liver disease patients: new study 

A new study has found that people who have non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) are three times more likely to also have a personality disorder.

“Finding an increased prevalence of personality disorders in NAFLD patients is particularly striking,” study co-author Dr. Jonathan Catling, from the UK’s University of Birmingham, said in a news release.

“It’s not an issue associated with all liver disease, but just those with NAFLD,” Catling added.

Personality disorders can include borderline personality disorder, narcissistic personality disorder and antisocial personality disorder. Symptoms vary from one condition to the next, but they all can cause problematic changes in thinking and behavior.

NAFLD, which often doesn’t have symptoms, affects up to 25% of people worldwide, according to the Cleveland Clinic.

In many countries, up to one-third of people have non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD), which can lead to cirrhosis and liver failure.

Because it’s associated with obesity, NAFLD is more common in wealthy nations like the U.S. and the UK.

The liver disease is managed through diet and exercise, but personality disorders frequently get in the way, causing patients to sabotage their health through behaviors like binge eating.

In particular, the researchers found that a person’s “locus of control” — how much control they believe they have over their life events — profoundly influences their behavior.

People with a high internal locus of control see life events as a result of their own actions, so they’re more likely to be successful in losing weight, which greatly helps with managing liver disease.

Conversely, many people with NAFLD have personality disorders that are linked to a high external locus of control, meaning they see life events as out of their control, so they struggle to follow a diet and exercise regime that would prevent NAFLD from progressing into an irreversible disease.

The authors of the research, published in BMC Gastroenterology, have called for NAFLD patients to be screened for personality disorders. These disorders should be treated before the patients begin trying to control their diet and exercise.

Alarmingly, even after liver transplantation due to NAFLD, a stunning two out of every five liver transplant patients show signs of NAFLD recurrence within five years, highlighting a critical need for effective lifestyle management.

“Our findings suggest an urgent need to examine attitudes towards diet and exercise so that we can better understand how to motivate NAFLD patients and deliver more effective treatment [and] preventing disease recurrence after liver transplantation.”