Herbal Bilberry, The Best Functional Food For Nonalcoholic Fatty Liver Disease (NAFLD)

By Kyle J. Norton


Nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) is a type of noninflammatory fatty liver disease caused by fat accumulated in the liver other than excessive alcohol consumption.

People who have an accumulation of triglycerides within hepatocytes that exceeds 5% of liver weight are considered to have nonalcoholic fatty liver disease.

According to the statistics, nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) has risen rapidly over the past few decades and become the most common cause of chronic liver disease in the developing world. The disease affects between  17-30% of the population in Western countries and 2-4% worldwide.

Epidemiologically. obesity, type II diabetes, dyslipidemia, and insulin resistance are the well-known primary causes of NAFLD.

The findings strongly suggested that NAFLD is a geographically related disease associated with dietary patterns.

Dr. Alanna McCarthy, the lead scientist in the examination of diet pattern in the risk NAFLD wrote, "Non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) is a serious consequence of high-fat diet intake and currently affects approximately one-third of the world’s entire population".


And, "Recent evidence suggests that patients with NAFLD have a higher incidence of cardiovascular disease compared to the general population. However, little is known about the link between NAFLD and pathological cardiac remodeling leading to heart disease".

Bilberry is a species of low-growing shrubs in the genus Vaccinium, belonging to the family Ericaceae, native to Northern Europe.

The plant has been used as herbs in traditional medicine for the treatment of acute and chronic diarrhea, gastritis, gastric ulcer, and duodenal ulcer, enterocolitis, ulcerative colitis, anemia, cystitis, kidney disease, and psoriasis, diabetes, etc.

With an aim to find natural prevention and treatment of non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD), researchers investigated the effects of anthocyanin supplementation on insulin resistance and liver injury biomarkers in patients.

74 subjects with NAFLD included in the study were divided into 2 groups in this double-blind, randomized study. Patients received either purified anthocyanin (320 mg/d) derived from bilberry and black currant or placebo for 12 weeks.

During the experiment, the anthocyanin group exhibited significantly decreased in plasma alanine aminotransferase, cytokeratin-18 M30 fragment, and myeloperoxidase, the biomarkers associated with NAFLD, compared to controls.

Compared to the baseline, the anthocyanin group significantly decreased in fasting blood glucose and homeostasis model assessment for insulin resistance, however, these differences were not significant relative to placebo controls.

Not surprisingly, anthocyanin supplementation significantly decreased the 2-hour loading glucose level compared to control, according to the oral glucose tolerance test.

Based on the findings, researchers said, "A 12-week supplement of purified anthocyanin improved insulin resistance, indicators of liver injury, and clinical evolution in NAFLD patients".

Furthermore, according to the results from the study of ApoE(∗)3Leiden mice fed a Western-type cholesterol-containing diet without (HC) or with 0.1% (w/w) Mirtoselect (HCM), an anthocyanin-rich bilberry extract for 20weeks on diet-induced NASH, Mirtoselect treatment group showed an attenuated HC-induced hepatic steatosis and reduced hepatic cholesteryl ester content.

Furthermore, injection of Mirtoselect also exerted local anti-inflammatory effects in the liver by reduced inflammatory cell clusters and neutrophil infiltration in HCM.

In other words, HCM protected the liver against HC diet significantly induced hepatic expression of pro-inflammatory and pro-fibrotic genes associated with the onset of NAFLD.

Dr. Morrison MC, the lead scientist, after taking other factors into account wrote, "Mirtoselect attenuates the development of NASH, reducing hepatic lipid accumulation, inflammation, and fibrosis, possibly mediated by local anti-inflammatory effects associated with reduced accumulation and crystallization of intrahepatic free cholesterol".

Taken altogether, bilberry processed abundantly bioactive compound anthocyanin may be considered a functioning remedy for the treatment of nonalcoholic fatty liver disease, pending to the validation of larger sample size and multicenter human study.

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Author Biography
Kyle J. Norton (Scholar, Master of Nutrition, All right reserved)
Health article writer and researcher; Over 10.000 articles and research papers have been written and published online, including worldwide health, ezine articles, article base, health blogs, self-growth, best before it's news, the karate GB daily, etc.,.
Named TOP 50 MEDICAL ESSAYS FOR ARTISTS & AUTHORS TO READ by Disilgold.com Named 50 of the best health Tweeters Canada - Huffington Post
Nominated for shorty award over last 4 years
Some articles have been used as references in medical research, such as international journal Pharma and Bioscience, ISSN 0975-6299.

References
(1) A CONSORT-compliant, randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled pilot trial of purified anthocyanin in patients with nonalcoholic fatty liver disease by Zhang PW1, Chen FX, Li D, Ling WH, Guo HH. (PubMed)
(2) Mirtoselect, an anthocyanin-rich bilberry extract, attenuates non-alcoholic steatohepatitis and associated fibrosis in ApoE(∗)3Leiden mice by Morrison MC1, Liang W2, Mulder P2, Verschuren L2, Pieterman E2, Toet K2, Heeringa P3, Wielinga PY2, Kooistra T2, Kleemann R. (PubMed)
(3) High-Fat-Diet Induced Non-Alcoholic Fatty Liver Disease and Cardiac Physiology in Mice by
 Alanna McCarthy and Stephen Luckey. (Faseb Journal)