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How To Prevent Fatty Liver Disease Become Serious – A New Option For The Concerned Appears

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Fatty liver is linked to a number of severe and often deadly disorders. There is presently no treatment for nonalcoholic fatty liver disease, which affects a large proportion of people with type 2 diabetes and may lead to more significant liver diseases.

Researchers from the Karolinska Institutet have found a new way to treat fatty liver disease. It includes keeping the fatty acids in the adipose tissue so they don’t leak out and build up in the liver.

An antibody that targets the protein VEGF-B shows promise as a treatment for fatty liver disease, according to preliminary research published in the Journal of Hepatology.

“With the therapeutic principle that we’ve developed,” remarks first author Annelie Falkevall, “it might be possible to prevent fatty liver and hopefully lower the risk of liver failure and terminal liver cancer.”

Over the last several decades, obesity and overweight have become a widespread condition across the world that, amongst other complications, has led to a dramatic increase in the number of cases of type 2 diabetes. The Swedish Diabetes Association estimates that out of Sweden’s 500,000 people with diabetes, 85–90% have type 2.

Being overweight and having type 2 diabetes raise the risk of developing non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD), the leading cause of chronic liver diseases such as liver failure and liver cancer in Europe and the US.

White adipose tissue is very good at storing energy in the form of lipids, but if a person is overweight for a long time or has type 2 diabetes, this isn’t enough and fatty acids build up in the blood.

So, they are stored somewhere else, like in the liver. In addition to impairing glucose secretion and causing insulin resistance, the buildup of fat in the liver also raises the risk of long-term harm to one of the body’s most vital organs.

Over 100 million Americans suffer from NAFLD, and prior studies have shown that those with NAFLD have a 17-fold increased chance of developing liver cancer. NAFLD occurs in 25 to 29 percent of patients with type 2 diabetes. There are currently no authorized medications for the treatment of NAFLD.

Scientists from Karolinska Institutet, CIBERDEM and CIBEROBN in Spain, CSL Behring in the US, and CSL Innovation in Australia have examined a novel approach for curbing the growth of fatty liver.

The researchers in the study utilized a drug candidate in the form of an antibody against the VEGF-B protein (Vascular Endothelial Growth Factor B), which regulates the discharge of fatty acids from white fat tissue.

The new treatment for fatty liver disease aims to prevent fatty acids from leaking out of the adipose tissue and collecting in the liver.

“Our results show,” adds corresponding author Ulf Eriksson, “that the pharmacological blocking of the VEGB-B signal pathway in mice prevents the accumulation of fat in the liver and reduces the risk of NAFLD.”

The drug candidate was given to normal and genetically engineered mice on varied diets. Researchers also looked at fat cells from 48 people who were going to have bariatric surgery.

Half of the participants had NAFLD, whereas the other half did not. Their findings demonstrate a strong association between NAFLD and the degree of VEGB-B signaling in white adipose tissue.

“The next step in taking this exciting drug candidate further,” remarks Prof. Eriksson, “is to include it in a clinical development program.”

Image Credit: Shutterstock

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