Active clinical trials for "Fatty Liver"

In the UK, around 1 in 16 men and 1 in 20 women will develop bowel cancer at some point in their lives. Most bowel cancers happen when a type of growth in the bowel called an adenoma eventually becomes cancerous. Cutting out adenomas reduces the risk of developing bowel cancer. Certain people are more likely to have adenomas than others, for example people who are overweight. People who are overweight are also more likely to develop liver disease by laying too much fat down in the liver. Studies in Asia have shown that people with fatty liver disease are more likely to have adenomas and these are more commonly found in the part of the bowel (right colon) furthest from the bottom end. Information on the link between obesity, fatty liver disease and adenomas is very limited, particularly in the Western population. The investigators will assess the link between body weight, fatty liver and adenomas in the UK population. 1430 patients will be invited; some through the bowel cancer screening programme and some with symptoms such as low blood count, bleeding or changed bowel habit. These patients will already have been referred for a camera test looking into the bowel, called a colonoscopy. Information including height, weight and some health questions will be taken. Blood samples will be taken. The investigators will compare the number of patients with adenomas who have liver disease or who are overweight with those who don't. This information will be used to develop a scoring system to predict risk of adenomas. This will help the investigators to decide if undertaking colonoscopies in these patients will identify those at increased risk of bowel cancer.

To determine the effect of diet and lifestyle, particularly vegetarian diets on chronic degenerative disease outcomes in a cohort of Taiwanese Buddhists participants

This study included 70 subjects divided into 3 groups. Group I included 25 patients with NAFLD. Group II included 25 patients with NAFLD and chronic HCV. Group III: included 20 controls. Abdominal ultrasound was done to patients and controls. Plasma pentraxin-3 (PTX3) was measured using ELISA. Comparison between three groups was done regarding plasma pentraxin-3. Higher levels of plasma PTX3 were detected in NAFLD patients irrespective of presence or absence of chronic HCV infection. Plasma PTX3 could be used as a non-invasive test for prediction of metabolic syndrome in the high-risk population with high sensitivity and moderate specificity.

Recent epidemiological studies in France showed a high prevalence of obesity (14.5%) and its strong increase in the last 20 years. Among the many complications associated with obesity, liver complications (steatosis and steatohepatitis [NASH]) are among the most common. Semaphorins were described in the early 1990. More than 20 types of these proteins have been reported to date. These proteins were used for neural development. Since many functions have also been described. The semaphorins are involved in numerous physiological or physiopathological processes (cardiac morphogenesis, vascular growth, tumor progression), the regulation of immune cells and liver fibrosis. Preliminary studies have allowed to show that dendritic cells infiltrate adipose tissue and initiate the activation of T cells and inflammation. Immune semaphorin are new players in the regulation of inflammation and immune reactions. The role of immune semaphorin in regulating inflammation in the two compartments (liver and adipose tissue) could be a crucial step that could lead to more severe liver damage. Its dysregulation could explain NASH injuries. The goal is to identify a new mode of regulation of cellular homeostasis in the fatty liver disease. These factors may serve as diagnostic markers or future therapeutic targets.

A study for evaluating the improvement effect of non-alcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH) of probiotics

The purpose of this study is to objectively quantify liver fat content (LFC) by Magnetic Resonant Imaging (MRI) prior to major liver surgery, and to investigate its association with post-operative complications.

The purpose of this study is to see how effective the investigators' optimized magnetic resonance spectroscopy (MRS) sequence in quantifying hepatic triglyceride content (HTGC) to enhance MRS as a diagnostic tool in non-alcohol fatty liver disease (NAFLD).

Non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) has become the most common liver disease at a global scale and is strongly associated with the obesity and metabolic syndrome . It is recognized as a hepatic manifestation of the metabolic syndrome, and characterized by lipid infiltration in the hepatocytes. NAFLD comprises a range of diseases from simple steatosis to non-alcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH), fibrosis, cirrhosis, and may progress to hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) . The worldwide prevalence of NAFLD is estimated to be 24% while it is reported to have much higher incidence in patients with metabolic syndrome and type 2 diabetes (T2D) (5). The mortality rate and the number of liver transplantations owing to NAFLD and NASH are increasing, making it the second leading cause of liver transplant in the United States . Tow significant metabolic abnormalities commonly linked to NAFLD are insulin resistance (IR) and increased supply of fatty acids to the liver . Chronic liver diseases (CLD), including NAFLD, are commonly associated with nutrient and vitamins deficiencies such as those of vitamins D and A (8,9). Almost all studies documenting vitamin A status in metabolic syndrome (MetS) report reductions in serum retinol, retinoic acid, and/or β-carotene that are inversely correlated with MetS features, including obesity, insulin resistance, glucose intolerance, and hypertriglyceridemia . In line with these observations, inadequate serum retinol levels (<1.05 μmol/L) were found in 11-36% of morbidly obese adults with ultrasonography-proven NAFLD, and a significant association between low retinol levels and insulin resistance (IR) was found . Moreover, serum retinol levels were inversely associated with body mass and serum transaminases in patients with NAFLD, suggesting a link between retinol inadequacy and development of disease. The liver plays a critical role in lipid metabolism by taking up serum free fatty acids (FFA) that are involved in the synthesis, storage, and transport of lipid metabolites. The accumulation of excess triacylglycerol (TG) within the liver due to the entry of excess FFA from the obese adipose tissue due to increased lipolysis leads to the development of non-alcoholic fatty liver diseases (NAFLD) .

Nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) has evolved to represent the most common cause of chronic liver disease globally. Today, NAFLD is a leading indication for liver transplantation and a major etiology for hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) in the United States. NAFLD is characterized by the excess accumulation of lipids within the liver and ranges from isolated steatosis to nonalcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH), which is characterized by the presence of hepatic necroinflammation, hepatocyte ballooning and fibrosis progression. Currently, liver biopsy remains the gold standard for the diagnosis of various chronic liver diseases, and for determining the severity of liver injury, inflammation, and fibrosis stage. However, this procedure is invasive, prone to complications such as bleeding and is associated with sampling variability and limited representation of the whole liver. Other limitations include, the difficulty to monitor liver injury progression over time and underestimation of disease severity. Despite intensive research, currently available non-invasive blood tests are not sufficiently sensitive or specific and are therefore of limited use. Blood biomarkers might provide significant advances in the diagnosis and monitoring of disease progression and regression in clinical settings. Recently, liquid biopsy has emerged as a potential, less invasive, alternative to liver biopsy. In fact, it addresses several unmet clinical needs, including sensitivity, specificity, the determination of prognoses, and the prediction of therapeutic responses.

Attenuation imaging (ATI) technology independently developed by Canon medical is a non-invasive examination technology for quantitative detection and analysis of liver steatosis. The technique is simple, rapid and quantitative diagnosis, and is suitable for screening and popularization of early liver steatosis in MAFLD. As noninvasive and effective detection measures of liver inflammation and liver fibrosis, SWD and SWE are more and more widely used in the quantitative diagnosis of liver inflammation and fibrosis. Therefore, ATI combined with SWD / SWE detection can quantitatively diagnose different pathological stages (steatosis, necrotizing inflammation and liver fibrosis) in the development of MAFLD, so as to provide an important basis for treatment.