MONDAY NOV 5, 2007 (Foodconsumer.org) --- A high fat diet such as Atkins diet may help lose some weight, but may also help develop a fatty liver, according to a new study, which found steatohepatitis or fatty liver with inflammation results from killing of regulatory T cells or Tregs in the liver induced by intake of high fat diet.
In the study published in the November issue of Hepatology, Xiong Ma of
Johns
Hopkins
University in Baltimore and colleagues determined the role of Tregs in the pathogenesis of hepatic steatosis ranging from nonalcoholic steatohepatitis to deadly cirrhosis.
In the study, adult mice were fed either a normal diet or a high fat diet to induce obesity, steatosis and insulin resistance similar to that seen in humans.
The researchers observed that the hepatic Tregs gradually decreased during the administration of the high fat diet and at the end of 8 weeks of study, the mice on high fat diet only had less than 50% of Tregs found in mice fed the normal diet.
They also found that compared to the control mice, the mice on high fat diet developed simple steatosis and became more susceptible to the liver inflammation-causing exogenous lipopolysaccarhide, a bacterial toxin injected into the laboratory animals. Those on the high fat diet who had Tregs depleted suffered a higher degree of liver injury.
“To our knowledge, this is the first time that Tregs have been linked to the inflammatory process in diet-induced steatosis,” the authors write.
The good news is that when mice were switched from a high fat diet to a normal fat diet, the Treg depletion could be reversed, meaning that the fatty liver may be improved.
“In conclusion, our study demonstrates that Tregs may play a critical role in controlling hepatic inflammation,” the authors write. “We speculate that the depletion of Tregs may be the key event in the transition from simple steatosis to steatohepatitis.”
Their results also suggest that increasing the number and/or function of Tregs may improve the prognosis of non-alcoholic fatty liver disease.
Source:
"A High-Fat Diet and Regulatory T Cells Influence Susceptibility to Endotoxin-Induced Liver Injury."
Ma, Xiong; Hua, Jing; Mohamood, Abdiaziz; Hamad, Abdel;
Ravi, Rajani; Li, Zhiping.
Hepatology; November 2007; (DOI: 10.1002/hep.21823)
