High liver scarring score linked to poorer thinking skills
An observational analysis followed 2,490 Finnish adults for 11 years, linking high liver scarring scores with poorer overall cognitive performance and word-list learning.
5,115 participants, 11 years
Limit: ELF can falsely label people as having liver fibrosis
Edited by Boris Djordjevic · AgingResearch.News
An observational study assessed 5,115 Finnish adults, with an average age of 53.2 years; 58.6% were women. Researchers compared a score indicating liver fibrosis, or scarring, with performance on thinking and memory tests. They adjusted their analyses for demographic factors and measures of metabolic and cardiovascular health.
At the initial assessment, high scores were associated with poorer overall cognitive performance and slower reaction times compared with low scores. The 11-year follow-up analysis included 2,490 adults whose average starting age was 48.7 years; 58.0% were women. High scores were associated with poorer overall cognitive performance and worse word-list learning both at the initial assessment and over follow-up. Researchers repeated the cognitive tests at follow-up, except for the reaction-time tests.
Why it matters
The authors suggested that liver scarring could be an early, potentially modifiable marker of vulnerability to cognitive problems as people age.
Caveats
This observational study cannot show that liver scarring caused poorer cognitive performance or that reducing scarring would improve cognition. The findings came from Finnish adults.
From the paper
- Participants
After these exclusions, 5115 participants were included in the cross-sectional analyses.
Quoted word for word from the full text on PubMed Central.
- Liver fibrosis
- Delayed wordlist recall
- Enhanced liver fibrosis score
- Global cognitive z-score
- Multiple-choice reaction time
- Humans
The paper
University of Turku; University Hospital of Turku
Hepatology Communications, Oct 19, 2026, Open access
