Understanding Non-Alcoholic Fatty Liver Disease
You may have heard of a common health problem known as non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD).
This disease affects many people who have type 2 diabetes, which means their bodies don’t use insulin properly.
People with NAFLD have too much fat in their liver cells, even though they don’t drink a lot of alcohol. NAFLD is a serious disease because it can lead to other more severe liver problems.
The Link Between Obesity, Diabetes and NAFLD
The number of people who are overweight or obese has risen sharply around the world for many years. This has led to a big increase in type 2 diabetes.
When people are overweight and have diabetes, they are more likely to develop NAFLD.
In fact, between 25 and 29 percent of people with type 2 diabetes also have NAFLD. Until now, there have been no approved medicines to treat this disease.
A New Hope for Treatment
A group of scientists from the Karolinska Institutet, a medical university in Sweden, have made an exciting discovery. They think they might have found a possible treatment for NAFLD.
This treatment is based on an antibody, which is a type of protein that your immune system uses to fight off harmful substances.
This antibody blocks another protein called VEGF-B (Vascular Endothelial Growth Factor B). VEGF-B controls the release of fatty acids, which are a type of fat, from a kind of body fat called white adipose tissue.
An Innovative Approach
The scientists have come up with a new way to tackle fatty liver disease. Their method is to keep the fatty acids in the adipose tissue. By doing this, the fatty acids don’t leak out and build up in the liver.
The researchers found that when they blocked the VEGF-B in mice, it stopped fat from gathering in the liver. This reduced the risk of the mice developing NAFLD.
Testing the New Treatment
The researchers carried out their study on both regular mice and mice that had been genetically modified. They fed the mice different diets and treated some of them with the new drug.
They also studied body fat from 48 human patients who were about to have weight-loss surgery. Half of these patients had NAFLD and the other half didn’t.
The results showed a clear connection between the level of VEGF-B activity in the white adipose tissue and the presence of NAFLD.
Potential Impact of the Study
The researchers are hopeful that this new method could help prevent fatty liver disease. If successful, it could lower the risk of serious illnesses like liver failure and terminal liver cancer.
The scientists are excited about their discovery, but they know that more research is needed to see if this treatment could work in people.
Conclusion
NAFLD is a serious disease that is linked to being overweight and having type 2 diabetes. While there is currently no approved treatment, this new study brings hope for the future.
If you are interested in learning more about keeping your liver healthy, you can also read about how dairy foods and coffee might affect your risk of liver cancer, and how the Mediterranean diet could help prevent fatty liver disease.
The study was carried out by Annelie Falkevall and her team and was published in the Journal of Hepatology.
If you care about liver health, please read studies about dairy foods linked to liver cancer, and coffee drinkers may halve their risk of liver cancer.
For more information about liver health, please see recent studies about new therapy for fatty liver disease, and results showing Mediterranean diet could cut fatty liver disease by half.
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