If you have a bigger waist, eating more processed foods might be more strongly linked to fat building up in your liver.

If you have obesity, eating ultra-processed foods might be even worse for your liver — it could lead to more fat building up there compared to people without obesity.

Eating a lot of ultra-processed foods, like packaged snacks and sugary drinks, might be linked to more fat building up in the liver among adults in the U.S., according to a liver scan measure. People who eat the most of these foods tend to have higher liver fat levels, even when other health habits are taken into account.

Eating a lot of ultra-processed foods might be riskier for younger adults' liver health — people under 50 have a nearly 30% higher chance of developing fatty liver disease compared to older adults who eat similarly.

Feeding rats a diet super high in fat leads to fat building up in their livers after 16 weeks — kind of like what happens in fatty liver disease. Scientists saw this through lab tests, scans, and looking at liver tissue under a microscope.

Eating too many carbs and calories — especially from sugary or processed foods — is what mainly causes fatty liver, not eating fat. Cutting out carbs or going on a carnivore diet might help reverse it.