Kefir improves fatty liver syndrome by inhibiting the lipogenesis pathway in leptin-deficient ob/ob knockout mice

• Published in: International Journal of Obesity 2014-09, Vol.38 (9), p.1172-1179
• Main Authors: Chen, H-L, Tung, Y-T, Tsai, C-L, Lai, C-W, Lai, Z-L, Tsai, H-C, Lin, Y-L, Wang, C-H, Chen, C-M
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: 631/443/319; 692/699/1503/1607/2750; 692/699/2743/393; Acetyl-CoA carboxylase; Agricultural biotechnology; Animal diseases; Animal health; Animal models; Animals; Basal Metabolism; Biological and medical sciences; Biomarkers - metabolism; Blotting, Western; Body weight; Care and treatment; Carnitine; Carnitine palmitoyltransferase; Cholesterol; Cultured Milk Products - metabolism; Dairy products; Diabetes; Diabetes mellitus; Disease Models, Animal; Energy expenditure; Energy Metabolism; Epidemiology; Fatty acids; Fatty liver; Fatty-acid synthase; Gastroenterology. Liver. Pancreas. Abdomen; Gene expression; Gene Expression Regulation; Health aspects; Health Promotion and Disease Prevention; Health services; Hepatocellular carcinoma; Hormones; Hypertension; Insulin; Insulin resistance; Internal Medicine; Kefir; Kephir; Life sciences; Lipid Metabolism; Lipids; Lipogenesis; Liver; Liver - metabolism; Liver cancer; Liver diseases; Liver. Biliary tract. Portal circulation. Exocrine pancreas; Medical sciences; Medicine; Medicine & Public Health; Metabolic Diseases; Metabolic rate; Metabolism; Mice; Mice, Knockout; Mice, Obese; Milk; Non-alcoholic Fatty Liver Disease - diet therapy; Non-alcoholic Fatty Liver Disease - metabolism; Non-alcoholic Fatty Liver Disease - physiopathology; Obesity; Oral administration; Organ Size; original-article; Other diseases. Semiology; Palmitoyltransferase; Patient outcomes; Prevention; Proteins; Public Health; Pyruvic acid; R&D; Receptors; Receptors, Leptin - deficiency; Research & development; Signal Transduction; Sterol Regulatory Element Binding Protein 1 - metabolism; Sterol regulatory element-binding protein; Sterols; Transaminase; Transaminases; Triglycerides
• ISSN: 0307-0565; 1476-5497
• DOI: 10.1038/ijo.2013.236

Objective: Fatty liver disease is commonly associated with obesity, insulin resistance and diabetes. Severe fatty liver is sometimes accompanied by steatohepatitis and may lead to the development of hepatocellular carcinoma. At present, there is no effective treatment for non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD); thus, recent investigations have focused on developing effective therapeutics to treat this condition. This study aimed to evaluate the effects of kefir on the hepatic lipid metabolism of ob/ob mice, which are commonly used to model fatty liver disease. Results: In this study, we used leptin receptor-deficient ob/ob mice as an animal disease model of NAFLD. Six-week-old ob/ob mice were orally administered the dairy product kefir (140 mg kg –1 of body weight (BW) per day) for 4 weeks. The data demonstrated that kefir improved fatty liver syndrome on BW, energy expenditure and basal metabolic rate by inhibiting serum glutamate oxaloacetate transaminase (GOT) and glutamate pyruvate transaminase (GPT) activities ( P