Dysfunction of autophagy is a key factor in the progression of NAFLD (Qian et al. 2021; Ren et al. 2024), and the decreased expression of ULK1 and Beclin1, as core proteins in the initiation stage of autophagy, can lead to lipid droplet clearance disorders (Martinez‐Lopez and Singh 2015). This evidence concerns the gene BECN1 and metabolic dysfunction-associated steatotic liver disease.