India, July 10 -- N is not yet 60. She is a professor and advocate of healthy living, who walked into her doctor's clinic for a routine blood test expecting reassurance. Instead, her report showed elevated liver enzymes. She was incredulous, saying she had never touched alcohol, was a vegetarian and had always followed a healthy lifestyle. But, she also had hypertension and diabetes, both of which ran in her family. That was the clue.

The likely explanation was metabolic dysfunction-associated steatotic liver disease (MASLD). Most people still know it as fatty liver. Until recently, doctors called it non-alcoholic fatty liver disease. In 2023, liver experts renamed it because the old name was misleading because alcohol is not the central...