2023-09-27 19:20:23
MONTREAL — Work carried out in Montreal provides a better understanding of the link between diabetes and fatty liver disease, particularly with regard to the role played by inflammation.
Researchers have thus observed, during laboratory experiments, that liver cells exposed to sugar and fat begin to produce inflammatory molecules.
In other words, said researcher Jennifer Estall, “there seems to be an intersection between what’s wrong with diabetes and worsening inflammation in the liver.” The livers of people with diabetes also appear to be in worse condition than those of healthy people, she added.
“We think we can explain this link between diabetes and fatty liver, and why people who have diabetes often have fatty liver,” said Ms. Estall, who works at the Montreal Clinical Research Institute. .
It is estimated that between 70% and 80% of diabetics also have fatty liver disease, a disease that results from the accumulation of fats in liver cells.
Fatty liver disease is frequently asymptomatic, beyond discomfort in the abdomen around the liver, fatigue and a general feeling of malaise. The disease is therefore usually diagnosed quite late.
A diagnosis of fatty liver disease doubles or triples the possibility of a diagnosis of diabetes a little later, said Ms. Estall.
“These two diseases are closely linked and it was always thought that inflammation might be involved,” she said. It seems that this (inflammatory) pathway that we found may be quite important for this link.”
This inflammatory pathway, she continues, has been known and studied for quite some time. But researchers now realize that it is expressed in two different ways, the classical way and the alternative way, and the new work reveals that the alternative expression, which is less well understood, is the one that is most active in this inflammatory process.
We might therefore consider, one day, acting on this alternative expression as a therapeutic option in the face of diabetes and fatty liver, said Ms. Estall.
“It’s important because we don’t know the cause of diabetes or fatty liver,” she explained. We have drugs to treat them, we can manage them, we can improve the quality of life of patients, but we do not understand the causes, but we think we are getting closer.”
This understanding, she said, might open the door to possible prevention of both diseases. It is estimated that approximately 10% of the Canadian population suffers from type 2 diabetes, and 25% from fatty liver disease. Millions of people are affected by these diseases in this country alone.
“We found a very close correlation between this inflammatory pathway and the amount of damage in the liver,” Ms. Estall said. So, possibly, one of these inflammatory molecules might be a good biomarker for fatty liver disease (…) which might make it possible to diagnose people earlier, before the disease damages the liver.
The findings of this study were published by the medical journal Diabetes.
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