Healthy Food Tomato Inhibits Hepatic Steatosis in Vivo

By Kyle J. Norton

Hepatic steatosis is a medical condition caused by the accumulation of fat in the liver.

In other words, if the intrahepatic fat of your liver is more than  5% of liver weight, you are considered to have hepatic steatosis. Over time, untreated hepatic steatosis can lead to liver metabolic dysfunction, inflammation, and advanced forms of nonalcoholic fatty liver disease.

Epidemiologically, hepatic steatosis has been found to induce complications in patients with obesity, alcohol intoxication and/or hepatic disorders.

There are several mechanisms involved in the accumulation of intrahepatic fat, including increased flux of fatty acids to the liver, increased de novo lipogenesis, and/or reduced clearance through β-oxidation or very-low-density lipoprotein secretion.

People who are obese, having the condition of insulin resistance or diabetes,  dyslipidemia,  hypertension, metabolic syndrome,  rapid weight loss, using hepatotoxic medications total parenteral nutrition (TPN) are at the increased risk of hepatic steatosis.

Out of many prevalent factors involved in the onset of hepatic steatosis, some researcher suggested that the promotion of the Western diet over the past few decades in the Western world may have a strong and negative impact that acelerates the incidence onset.

Dr. Michael D. Roberts, the lead scientist wrote, "Six weeks of WD feeding caused hepatic steatosis development as evidenced by the 2.25-fold increase in liver triacylglycerol content, but did not induce advanced liver disease (i.e., no overt inflammation or fibrosis)".

And, "sub-chronic WD feeding appears to increase hepatic steatosis development over a 6-week period but only induces select inflammation-related liver transcripts, mostly acute phase response genes. These findings continue to outline the early stages of NAFLD development prior to overt liver inflammation and advanced liver disease".

The results strongly suggested the risk of the Western diet on hepatic steatosis developing.

Tomato is red, edible fruit, genus Solanum, belonging to family Solanaceae, native to South America. Because of its health benefits, the tomato is grown worldwide for the commercial purpose
and often in the greenhouse.

In the urgency to discover healthy foods for the treatment of hepatic steatosis, researchers examined the effect of tomato consumption on biomarkers and gene expression related to lipid metabolism in rats with induced steatosis.

The study included 24 adult male Sprague-Dawley rats (8 weeks old) randomly assigned to (n = 6 rats/group)  four experimental groups, including NA (normal diet and water), NL (normal diet and tomato juice), HA (high-fat diet and water) and HL (high-fat diet and tomato juice).

According to the tested assays, before treatment of tomato, HA group fed high-fat diet-induced hepatic steatosis confirmed by the levels of alanine aminotransferase and aspartate aminotransferase, an indication of liver stress and injury.

Tomato treated group showed a significant increase of levels of lycopene and its secondary metabolites in the livers of these animals, particularly in HL than in NL group, apparently due to higher absorption (63.07 vs. 44.45%).

Furthermore, tomato treated group protected the liver by alleviating oxidative stress through reduction of isoprostanes in the urine observed by increased levels of antioxidant enzymes.

Moreover, levels of high-density lipoprotein were also increased in the HL group compared to the HA group.

Interesting, overexpression of several genes related to lipid metabolism was also found in the HL group compared to nontreatment groups.

In other words, tomato inhibited the onset and progression of hepatic steatosis.in high-fat diet mice by inhibiting liver oxidative stress and enhancing lipid metabolism.

Dr. Martín-Pozuelo G, the lead scientist wrote, "The consumption of tomato juice and tomato products reduced hallmarks of steatosis, plasmatic triglycerides, and very low-density lipoproteins, and increased lipid metabolism by inducing an overexpression of genes involved in more efficient fatty acid oxidation".

Taken altogether, tomato may be considered a dietary supplements for the prevention and treatment of hepatic steatosis, pending to large 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.

Sources
(1) The effect of tomato juice supplementation on biomarkers and gene expression related to lipid metabolism in rats with induced hepatic steatosis by Martín-Pozuelo G1, Navarro-González I, González-Barrio R, Santaella M, García-Alonso J, Hidalgo N, Gómez-Gallego C, Ros G, Periago MJ. (PubMed)
(2) Lipid biomarkers and metabolic effects of lycopene from tomato juice on liver of rats with induced hepatic steatosis by Bernal C1, Martín-Pozuelo G, Lozano AB, Sevilla A, García-Alonso J, Canovas M, Periago MJ. (PubMed)
(3) Western diet-induced hepatic steatosis and alterations in the liver transcriptome in adult Brown-Norway rats by Michael D. Roberts, C. Brooks Mobley, Ryan G. Toedebush, Alexander J. Heese, Conan Zhu,Anna E. Krieger, Clayton L. Cruthirds, Christopher M. Lockwood, John C. Hofheins,Charles E. Wiedmeyer, Heather J. Leidy, Frank W. Booth, and R. Scott Rector. (PMC)