Doctors can accurately predict a person’s risk of fatty liver disease as early as 16 years before symptoms develop, a new study says.

A blood test looking for five specific proteins can predict metabolic dysfunction-associated steatotic liver disease (MASLD), more commonly known as fatty liver disease, researchers are scheduled to report at the upcoming Digestive Diseases Week meeting in San Diego.

The five-protein test was 84% accurate at predicting fatty liver disease five years from onset and 76% accurate at predicting 16 years ahead of diagnosis, researchers report.

“Too often, people do not find out they are at risk for liver disease before they are diagnosed and coping with symptoms,” lead researcher Dr. Shiyi Yu said in a news release. Yu is a resident physician of gastroenterology at Guangdong Provincial People's Hospital in China.

“The field urgently needs effective biomarkers and predictive models, and our research shows that plasma proteins offer novel potential strategies for early prediction and intervention,” Yu added.

Fatty liver disease occurs when fat starts to accumulate in the liver, eventually causing inflammation and scarring. People with the disorder face up to twice the risk of premature death as those without fatty liver disease, researchers said in background notes.

For the study, researchers analyzed blood samples from more than 50,000 people participating in the UK Biobank, a long-term U.K. health research study.

The team screened for more than 2,700 blood-borne proteins and found five that appear to be early warning signals for fatty liver disease.

Adding other clues of fatty liver disease, like body mass index (an estimate of body fat based on height and weight) and daily exercise, boosted the blood test’s accuracy even more – more than 90% at five years and 82% at 16 years.

“We achieved similar results when we tested this predictive model in a separate cohort of people in China, further supporting the robustness of the model and showing it can be effective across diverse populations,” Yu said.

Yu is scheduled to present these findings on May 4. Findings presented at medical meetings are considered preliminary until published in a peer-reviewed journal.