The University of Missouri School of Medicine has discovered a link between a high-fat, high-sugar Western diet and the development of nonalcoholic fatty liver disease, the leading cause of chronic liver disease. The study, conducted at MU’s Roy Blunt NextGen Precision Health Building, identified the Western diet-induced microbial and metabolic contributors to liver disease and furthered our understanding of the gut-liver axis and consequently the development of dietary and microbial interventions for this global health threat .
“We are just beginning to understand how food and gut microbiota interact to produce metabolites that contribute to the development of liver disease,” said co-principal investigator Guangfu Li, Ph.D., DVM, associate professor in the Department of Surgery and Department of Molecular Microbiology and Immunology. “However, the specific bacteria and metabolites as well as the underlying mechanisms were not well understood until now. This research decodes the how and why.”
The intestine and liver are closely connected both anatomically and functionally via the portal vein. Unhealthy diet alters the gut microbiota, leading to the production of pathogenic factors that affect the liver. By feeding mice high in fat and sugar, the research team discovered that the mice developed a gut bacterium called Blautia producta and a lipid that caused liver inflammation and fibrosis. This, in turn, caused the mice to develop nonalcoholic steatohepatitis, or fatty liver disease, with features similar to humans.
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“Fatty liver disease is a global health epidemic,” said Kevin Staveley-O’Carroll, MD, Ph.D., professor in the Department of Surgery, one of the lead investigators. “Not only is it becoming the leading cause of liver cancer and cirrhosis, but many patients I see with other types of cancer have fatty liver disease and don’t even know it. This often makes it impossible for them to undergo surgery that could potentially cure other cancers.”
As part of this study, the researchers tested treating the mice with an antibiotic cocktail administered via the drinking water. They found that antibiotic treatment reduced liver inflammation and lipid accumulation, leading to a reduction in fatty liver disease. These results suggest that antibiotic-induced changes in the gut microbiota can suppress inflammatory responses and liver fibrosis.
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