LOS ANGELES: High fat and high cholesterol diet may trigger changes in the immune system that can lead to a serious form of non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD), a study warns.
An estimated 20 per cent of people with NAFLD have non-alcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH), according to the study published in the journal Hepatology.
NASH can eventually progress to cirrhosis or liver cancer, especially in those with obesity or Type 2 diabetes. Patients with NAFLD are also at an increased risk of cardiovascular disease, they said.
“Despite its increasing prevalence and burden to the health care system, there are currently no US Food and Drug Administration-approved therapies for non-alcoholic fatty liver disease,” said Hugo Rosen, a professor at University of Southern California in the US.
“There’s an urgent need to better understand the causes of non-alcoholic fatty liver disease progression so that successful therapeutics can be designed and brought into clinical practice,” Rosen said.
The study illuminates how a toxic combination of dietary fat and cholesterol impacts the behaviour of macrophages, a type of white blood cell, in the liver. (AGENCIES)
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