Health Highlight: Fri. 17, Mar.
Today’s highlight: The links between bad food, bad gut bacteria, and fatty liver disease.
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I’ll have the burger and shake, hold the liver fat. Thanks.
✍🏼 Carlos Franco | @itstechnical_cf
The idea that the kind of food you eat can cause health problems is not new. In recent years, buzzwords like leaky gut, or leaky gut syndrome have made their way into health and wellness conversations and social media. [1]
So what’s the big news?
Researchers are beginning to gain a clearer insight into exactly how and why a high-fat and high-sugar diet leads to liver damage, which can complicate treating other health concerns like cancer.
Tell me more.
Investigators from the University of Missouri have linked how the type of food consumed can cause changes in the metabolic process of the bacteria living in the gut, which can lead to chronic liver disease.
“The gut and liver have a close anatomical and functional connection via the portal vein. Unhealthy diets change the gut microbiota, resulting in the production of pathogenic factors that impact the liver.” [2]
The team, led by Guangfu Li, PhD, DVM, associate professor in the departments of surgery and Molecular Microbiology and Immunology, and Kevin Staveley-O’Carroll, MD, PhD, professor in the department of surgery, observed that feeding mice a diet high in sugar and fat created conditions for the growth of a bacteria, Blautia producta, as well as the accumulation of fatty compounds called lipids.
These bacteria and fatty compounds caused chronic inflammation and tissue buildup (fibrosis) in the livers of the test mice. This led to the test mice developing a form of fatty liver disease (steatohepatitis) similar to that seen in humans.
I feel bad for the mice, but how does this help humans?
According to the researchers, it meant that they could try looking for ways to address these newly identified culprits: bacteria and inflammation.
By giving the mice a course of antibiotic therapy, it was demonstrated that the bacteria and inflammation causing the lipid buildup and damage could be effectively treated.
“Fatty liver disease is a global health epidemic… Not only is it becoming the leading cause of liver cancer and cirrhosis, but many patients I see with other cancers have fatty liver disease and don’t even know it. Often, this makes it impossible for them to undergo potentially curative surgery for their other cancers.”
Final thoughts
While it’s great to have a treatment that directly addresses the problems caused by bad gut bacteria and inflammation and improves treatment outcomes for chronic liver disease, the knowledge gained about the link between consuming a diet high in fats and sugars may have a greater impact on the epidemic of fatty liver disease through better nutrition and food education.
Further reading
Liver Fibrosis: Mechanistic Concepts and Therapeutic Perspectives
A review of metabolic potential of human gut microbiome in human nutrition
Resources
🏷️ Tags: #Research #LiverDisease #FattyLiver #Nutrition #FoodEducation
Sources
Leaky gut: What is it, and what does it mean for you? (URL, Glasp)
Research Finds Link Between Western Diets and Chronic Liver Disease (URL, Glasp)
https://www.microbiomeatlas.org/data/images_species/blautia.jpg