MBD publishes in Cell Metabolism and makes it to the front cover!
| by Ana Depetris Chauvin
We are very excited that our work "Resistant starch decreases intrahepatic triglycerides in patients with NAFLD via gut microbiome alterations" has been published in the Journal Cell Metabolism.
Fatty liver disease that is not associated with alcohol consumption (NAFLD) is a global emergency, affecting more than 25% of the world's population. Current efforts to manage the disease focus on lifestyle interventions such as exercising and changing diet. In particular, microbiota-directed foods like resistant starch have been proposed as an effective intervention. However, clinical trials to test the direct impact of such diet changes on the gut microbiome and the improvement of NAFLD progression were missing.
In an excellent collaboration with the Shangai Sixth People's Hospital (Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine), and as part of the Cluster of Excellence "Balance of the Microverse" and the Horizon2020 EU Research and Innovation program "BestTreat", we started a 4-month clinical trial to test the effect of resistant on people with NAFLD. Using a multi-omic integrative analysis, we demonstrated the beneficial effects of a resistant starch-riched diet. Furthermore, we revealed the interplay among gut microbiota changes, host metabolites, and hepatic steatosis, with causality supported by fecal microbiota transplantation and monocolonization in a mouse model of NAFLD.
We are confident that our findings contribute to a better understanding of NAFLD pathogenesis and the development of innovative microbiome-based therapeutics or microbiome-directed foods.
Congratulations to MBD members Yueqiong Ni, Sara Leal Siliceo, Emmanouil Nychas, Howell Leung, Gianni Panagiotou, and our collaborators at the Shangai Sixth People's Hospital!
To learn more about our study, follow us on Twitter (@MBD_lab) and read our Thread highlighting the most relevant results. You can also read a preview article on the same issue highlighting our study.
Original Publication
Ni Y*, Qian L*, Leal Siliceo S*, Long X*, Nychas E, Liu Y, Ismaiah MJ, Leung H, Zhang L, Gao Q, Wu Q, Zhang Y, Jia Xi, Liu S, Yuan R, Zhou L, Wang X, Li Q, Zhao Y, El-Nezami H, Xu A, Xu G#, Li H#, Panagiotou G#, Jia W# (2023) Resistant starch decreases intrahepatic triglycerides in NAFLD patients via gut microbiome alterations. Cell Metabolism 35, 1530-1547.