APOE and metabolic dysfunction-associated steatotic liver disease: Numerous studies have reported NAFLD as an important cardiovascular risk factor (19,20), Kleemann et al demonstrated that after 10 weeks of a high cholesterol diet (1% cholesterol), the lesion area in female APOE*3-Leiden (E3L) mice was correlated with plasma levels of serum amyloid A protein (SAA), suggesting that the hepatic inflammatory response is involved in the formation of early atherosclerotic lesions (21).