Sugar intake not directly linked with fatty liver disease

Washington, Nov 4 (ANI): A new study has claimed that sugar intake is not directly associated with nonalcoholic fatty liver disease, as it was earlier believed.

Rather, high-calorie diets promote the progression of this serious form of liver disease.

Researchers conducted a double-blind study of healthy, but centrally overweight men to compare the effects of high intakes of two types of sugar, glucose and fructose, in two conditions - weight-maintaining (moderate-calorie diet) and weight-gaining (high-calorie diet).

In the weight-maintaining period, men on neither diet developed any significant changes to the liver.

However, in the weight-gaining period, both diets produced equivalent features of nonalcoholic fatty liver disease, including steatosis (fatty liver) and elevated serum transaminase and triglycerides.

These findings indicate that fructose and glucose have comparable effects on one's liver, and calorie intake is the factor responsible for the progression of liver disease.

"Based on the results of our study, recommending a low-fructose or low-glycemic diet to prevent nonalcoholic fatty liver disease is unjustified," Professor Ian A. Macdonald, study author and faculty of medicine and health sciences, University of Nottingham, UK, said.

"The best advice to give a patient is to maintain a healthy lifestyle with diet and exercise. Our study serves as a warning that even short changes in lifestyle can have profound impacts on your liver," he said.

The study is published in Gastroenterology, the official journal of the American Gastroenterological Association. (ANI)

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Diabetic women under 60 at higher risk of heart disease

Washington, Nov. 1 (ANI): Researchers including an Indian origin scientist has found that young and middle-aged women suffering from type 2 diabetes are at increased greater risk of developing coronary artery disease than previously believed.

Lead study author Rita Rastogi Kalyani, M.D., M.H.S., endocrinologist at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, said that their findings suggest that we need to work harder to prevent heart disease in women under 60 who have diabetes.

She said that this study tells us that women of any age who have diabetes are at a high risk for coronary artery disease.

For the research, she and her colleagues analyzed data from more than 10,000 participants in three widely regarded studies: the GeneSTAR Research Program, the Multi-Ethnic Study of Atherosclerosis and the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) III.

None of the participants had a history of heart disease. All three studies yielded similar gender differences in rates of diabetes and the risk of developing heart disease.

Interestingly, in both women and men, these findings were unrelated to differences in obesity and other traditional cardiovascular risk factors such as high blood pressure, cholesterol and smoking.

The study has been published in the journal Diabetes Care. (ANI)

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