NIH awards $163K for alcoholic fatty liver disease research

The National Institutes of Health awarded Jonathan Peterson, PhD, assistant professor of health sciences, East Tennessee State University’s College of Public Health, a grant worth $163,000 to further his research on alcoholic fatty liver disease, according to a press release.

The grant will allow Peterson to study the effect and impact of the CTRP3 protein on the liver, and investigate whether it can be used as a therapeutic target to prevent and treat alcoholic fatty liver disease.

“It’s something that is already in the body that we can take advantage of to treat the disease,” Peterson said in the release. “There are no pharmaceutical treatments currently available to treat fatty liver disease. This would have a major impact on lowering the mortality risk — if it works.”

Jonathan Peterson

Peterson initially began research on the CTRP3 protein and its effect on nonalcoholic liver disease and any link to diabetes and obesity. This and other research turned his attention to alcoholic liver disease when he discovered that CTRP3 levels were lower after alcohol consumption.

“I was looking at how tissues talk to each other to regulate glucose in the blood. We discovered a CTRP3 has a real protective effect on the liver. It actually prevented high-fat, diet-induced accumulation in the liver,” Peterson said. “Now we want to see if it has the same effect with alcohol consumption, which is the other way fat collects on the liver. Alcoholic fatty liver accounts for 50% of cirrhosis, which is the 12th largest killer in the country.”

Disclosure: Healio.com/Hepatology was unable to confirm relevant financial disclosures at the time of publication.