- Nonalcoholic fatty liver disease can lead to cirrhosis and liver cancer.
- It is a silent condition that people often don’t realize they have.
- While there are no treatments currently available, new research in mice suggests a multi-mineral supplement may be able to disrupt the pathways that cause the most damaging effects.
According to the American Liver Foundation, about 100 million people in the United States have nonalcoholic fatty liver disease.
This number has doubled over the last 20 years, and nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) is the most common form of liver disease in children. About 24% of Americans have NAFLD, and many who have it are unaware that they do.
NAFLD can develop into nonalcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH) if left untreated. With NASH, the liver becomes inflamed or damaged.
Dr. Muhammad Nadeem Aslam, an assistant research scientist in the Department of Pathology at the University of Michigan (UMich), told Medical News Today:
“Late-stage NASH represents an unreversible state when the liver has gone through the scarring and repair mechanisms and eventually develops either permanent scarring (cirrhosis) or, in some cases, liver cancer.”
Between about 1.5% and 6.5% of Americans have NASH.
“Currently, there are no FDA-approved drugs for the treatment of NASH,” said Dr. Aslam. “Prevention is possible but depends on changes in lifestyle and dietary modifications. This will not work for everyone.”
As its name suggests, NAFLD is not caused by drinking alcohol. Its development has been associated with type 2 diabetes, obesity, high cholesterol, high glycerides, rapid weight loss, and poor eating habits.
Dr. Aslam is the senior investigator for pre-clinical research exploring the use of a multi-mineral supplement called Aquamin for treating NASH. It is derived from red marine algae and is rich in calcium, magnesium, 72 other minerals, and trace elements.
The results have been encouraging so far, according to Dr. Aslam.
“If these proof-of-concept findings — i.e., mitigating the downstream liver consequences of a high fat diet using a combination of minerals (as present in red algae-derived product) — demonstrate success in humans, then this could have a huge impact on human health,” he said.
The research was presented to the American Society for Investigative Pathology annual meeting at the Experimental Biology (EB) 2022 conference on April 3, 2022.
Understanding the cause of liver disease
Isabelle Harber, an undergraduate researcher in Dr. Aslam’s lab, presented the research in Philadelphia. She told the conference:
“Most people living in Western society do not meet the USDA daily intake guidelines for the intake of calcium and magnesium and, presumably, other minerals nutritionally associated with these minerals.”
“We are working,” says Harber, “to find out if a mineral supplement could provide a low cost, low- to no-toxicity approach to mitigating the devastating consequences of nonalcoholic fatty liver disease.”
Scientists have not yet definitively identified the specific triggers of NAFLD.
Dr. Giulio Marchesini of the Department of Medical and Surgical Sciences at the University of Bologna, who was not involved in the new research, is the senior author of” Management of Non-Fatty Liver Disease.”
“Data are not easy to explain. NASH prevalence is around 25-30% in all countries, not only in the U.S., where fresh food is rarely the base of a daily diet. Why [is] NASH in the Mediterranean area?” he told MNT.
“Deficiency of vitamins and essential micronutrients have long been associated with NASH, but very few solid data exist,” Dr. Marchesini continued. “In the PIVENS study, vitamin E effectively reduced disease progression and NASH.”
“The most valid trials give support for a possible use of lanifibranor, obeticholic acid (with a limit of tolerability), the GLP-1 receptor agonist semaglutide, tirzepatide, and TRH-beta agonists. All [are] associated with lifestyle and weight loss,” he added.
Mice and Aquamin
“It was incidental,” said Dr. Aslam, regarding interest in Aquamin for NASH.
“Calcium has been considered as a chemopreventive agent against colon cancer, but the results in human subjects are modest and mixed,” he said.
Researchers in the lab of UMich’s Dr. James Varani—where Dr. Aslam was a post-doc—conducted 15-month trials with mice who had been fed high fat diets, some of whom were given Aquamin to assess its effect on colon cancer.
“While the focus was on the colon polyps (tumors),” said Dr. Aslam, “we noticed that most of the male mice (some female mice as well) on the high fat diet had developed large liver tumors, and mice on Aquamin had no tumors in the liver.”
The researchers conducted a second, 18-month trial, and the results were the same. A short-term trial conducted by Dr. Aslam’s lab confirmed the findings. The results were presented at the Experimental Biology session.
Dr. Aslam summarized:
“One of the effects Aquamin has shown in this study is a significant decrease in collagen deposition, which usually represents fibrosis. Decrease in fibrosis will cause less tissue damage and decreased progression toward end-stage effects of liver injury.”
It remains to be seen whether Aquamin has the same effect on the human liver.
As Dr. Marchesini made clear, “Moving from animals to man is fundamental to support efficacy.”
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