The protective effect of the TA allele of HSD17B13 rs72613567 was identified in patients with ALD (odds ratio [OR] = 0.73; 95% confidence interval [CI], 0.65-0.82; P < 0.0001), NAFLD (OR = 0.64; 95% CI, 0.49-0.83; P = 0.0007), and hepatitis C (OR = 0.71; 95% CI, 0.60-0.85; P = 0.0002).
We found two plausible causative variants in the HSD17B13 gene. rs72613567, a splice-site SNP in high linkage with rs6834314 (r<sup>2</sup> = 0.94) generates splice variants and shows a similar pattern of association with NAFLD histology.