THE ESSENTIAL
- Previous studies had already shown that non-alcoholic steatohepatitis affected more men than women.
- Non-alcoholic steatohepatitis can progress to cirrhosis.
In France, 200,000 people are affected by fatty liver disease, also called “non-alcoholic steatohepatitis”, according to theInserm. It is a chronic disease characterized by an accumulation of fat in the liver associated with inflammation. This pathology is not linked to alcohol consumption but affects more obese people or people with type 2 diabetes.
FPR2 protein protects women from NASH
According to a team of researchers from the Pusan National University in South Korea, women are less at risk of developing fatty liver disease because they produce formyl-peptide protein 2 (FPR2) in greater quantities than men. Their work has just been published in the journal Nature Communications.
To achieve this result, the researchers conducted their experiments on mice. According to their conclusions, this greater quantity of FPR2 in female mice would protect them more once morest non-alcoholic steatohepatitis than male mice.
But why do females have more FPR2? Estrogens, female hormones, play a very strong role in the production of FPR2. In other words, the livers of males and females both make the FPR2 protein, but in female mice the production is boosted by their estrogen.
Without ovaries, FPR2 production drops in female mice
This conclusion is validated by two experiments. In the first, the scientists administered estrogen to male mice. Results: Their liver produced significantly more FPR2. In the second, they removed the ovaries from female mice, which shuts down estrogen secretion, and observed that they had much lower levels of FPR2 in the liver and were therefore more likely to develop the sickness.
On the other hand, to verify that it is indeed FPR2 which protects mice from fatty liver disease, the scientists removed this protein from all the rodents in the experiment. Thus, all the mice (both female and male) had an increased risk of developing this disease. They therefore concluded that the FPR2 protein protects once morest non-alcoholic steatohepatitis. They now hope that their results will make it possible to develop a new treatment using the FPR2 protein as a therapeutic target to prevent or cure this disease. Hope for patients because, currently, there is no effective and approved drug to treat non-alcoholic fatty liver disease.
