New Treatment for Non-Alcoholic Fatty Liver Disease

Research published in eLife by Oregon State University suggests that a pair of prenylated flavonoid compounds xanthohumol (XN) and tetrahydroxanthohumol (TXN) originating from hops can help prevent dangerous buildup of fat (hepatic steatosis) in nonalcoholic fatty liver disease hepatic steatosis. Nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) is an umbrella term for a range of liver conditions affecting people who drink little to no alcohol due to more amount of fat stored in liver cells is seen in one-fourth population of the United States and Europe.

Insulin resistance, obesity, high fat diet, and elevated levels of fat in the blood are various risk factors for Non-Alcoholic Fatty Liver Disease.

In this study 60 mice were randomly assigned to one of five groups - low-fat diet, high-fat diet, high-fat diet supplemented by XN, high-fat diet supplemented by more XN, and high-fat diet supplemented by TXN.

"We demonstrated that TXN was very effective in suppressing the development and progression of hepatic steatosis caused by diet," said Gombart, professor of biochemistry and biophysics in the OSU College of Science and a principal investigator at the Linus Pauling Institute.

The results show that TXN is more effective than XN in mitigating diet-induced accumulation of fat in the liver by regulating PPAR£^, a nuclear receptor protein that controls glucose metabolism, the storage of fatty acids, and stimulates the creation of fat cells from stem cells.

Though XN and TXN are effective in rodents, future studies using these compounds c to prevent and treat diet-induced liver steatosis and related metabolic disorders as a low-cost therapeutic approach needs to be validated.

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Source-Medindia