VIDEO: Resistant starch supplement lowers liver fat, alters gut microbiome in NAFLD
Click Here to Manage Email Alerts
Key takeaways:
- Supplementation with resistant starch reduced intrahepatic triglyceride content by 9.08%.
- The intervention also reduced liver enzymes and Bacteroides stercoris in the gut.
Dietary supplementation with resistant starch reduced intrahepatic triglyceride content and may help manage disease by altering gut microbiota among patients with nonalcoholic fatty liver disease, according to data in Cell Metabolism.
“There is accumulating evidence from us and others that NAFLD is a disease closely related to gut microbiota via the gut-liver axis,” Gianni Panagiotou, PhD, professor of biological sciences at Friedrich Schiller University in Germany, said in a Healio video exclusive. “Given the link between the gut microbiome and the liver, it has been proposed that microbiota-directed foods could be a potential target for therapeutic interventions. ... But, up until now, there haven’t been enough prospective long-term trials designed to test microbiome-based foods in NAFLD.”
In a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial, Panagiotou and colleagues investigated the therapeutic effects of resistant starch — a microbiota-directed prebiotic of nondigestible fibers fermented in the large intestine — among 200 patients with NAFLD. Eligible participants (73% men; mean age, 39.1 years) received either resistant starch type 2 from high-amylose maize (n = 99) or control starch with equal energy supply (n = 97) for 4 months.
Results showed the treatment group had a 9.08% absolute reduction of intrahepatic triglyceride content, which, after adjusting for weight loss, was 5.89%. Researchers also reported significant reductions in alanine aminotransferase, aspartate aminotransferase and gamma-glutamyl transpeptidase, as well as reductions in serum branched-chain amino acids and gut microbial species, especially Bacteroides stercoris.
“The intervention with resistant starch not only improved several clinical parameters associated with NAFLD but also affected the gut microbiome and metabolome,” Panagiotou said. “We are very excited with the opportunities that our findings open to the emerging field of microbiome-based therapeutics.”
Collapse
Read more about
Click Here to Manage Email Alerts