Herbal Turmeric Protects the Liver Against Non-Alcoholic Fatty Liver Disease

By Kyle J. Norton

The liver is the largest internal organ with a function which filters the blood from the intestinal tract before passing them to other parts of the body.

In other words, the liver detoxes the blood coming from the digestive tract before passing the blood to nourish other tissues and organs in the body.

Additonally, the liver also produces bile to aid digestion and cholesterol to build strong cell membranes, production of vitamin D, steroid hormones, and antioxidant enzymes that inhibit free radicals oxidation.

Liver disease is a broad term included any problems that cause the reduced function of the liver.
Nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) is a chronic condition caused by fat accumulated in the liver over time, in the absence of excessive alcohol use. The disease can be classified into the types of non-inflammatory fatty liver (NAFL) and inflammatory nonalcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH).

Nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) is one of the major causes of cirrhosis and liver cancer.

The progression of NAFLD that leads to cirrhosis, is the late stage of liver scarring, as the liver tries to heal itself by halting inflammation, inducing symptoms of ascites, swell esophageal varices, hepatic encephalopathy, complications of liver cancer and liver failure.

A recent joint study led by the Guilan University of Medical Sciences (GUMS), suggested that curcumin supplementation may be effective for the regulation of liver enzymes in patients with non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) through reviewing the medical literature online.

Turmeric is a perennial plant in the genus Curcuma, belonging to the family Zingiberaceae, native to tropical South Asia.

The herb has been used in traditional medicine as anti-oxidant, hypoglycemic, colorant, antiseptic, wound healing agent, and to treat flatulence, bloating, and appetite loss, ulcers, eczema, inflammations, etc.

According to the statistics in 2015, approximately, 20 to 30% of the general population in the Western world suffer from NAFLD. The prevalent rate is substantially higher in the population with type 2 diabetes mellitus (70%) and morbid obesity (90%). 

 Believe or not, non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) now becomes a universal disorder and the most common liver disease in the Western world.

Most people at the early stage NAFLD are asymptomatic.  However, at the later stage, most patients experience symptoms of right upper abdominal discomfort, fatigue, and/or malaise, and jaundice with yellowing of the skin and eyes.

Conventionally, as of today, there is no effective treatment of NAFLD. Weight loss for overweight and obese patients accompanied by the change of lifestyles are recommended, such as moderate exercise and reduced intake of alcohol, depending on individuals.

The randomized controlled trials (RCTs) included the search of studies published on PubMed, Scopus, Web of Science and Google Scholar until December 2017 in adult participants with non-alcoholic fatty liver disease.

According to the results of m-analysis of 4 randomized controlled trials including 228 subjects, subgroup with ≥1000 mg/day curcumin supplementation showed a trend toward significant reduction of ALT blood concentrations, a liver stress marker, compared to lower doses.

Furthermore, treatment for 8 weeks with the same concentration of curcumin supplementation also showed a significant reduction of liver stress marker AST.

The findings strongly suggested the efficacy of curcumin supplement for the treatment of NAFLD in a dose-dependent manner.

Moreover, a 12 weeks double-blind, randomized, controlled clinical trial with 92 patients with NAFLD aged 20-60 year with body mass index (BMI) ranged 24.9-40 kg/m2 randomly assigned to 4 groups as follows. 1) Turmeric supplementation (3 g/d) (n = 23, TUR); 2) Chicory seed supplementation (infused 9 g/d (4.5 g /100mL)) (n = 23, CHI); 3) Turmeric and chicory seed supplementation (3 g/d turmeric + infused 9 g/d chicory seed (n = 23, TUR + CHI); 4) Placebo (n = 23, PLA), researchers found that

* BMI and waist circumference (WC) associated with the risk of NAFLD were significantly reduced in CHI and TUR + CHI groups, compared with PLA group.

* Elevated liver stress markers found in patients with NAFLD was also inhibited in the TUR + CHI group observed by lower levels of serum alkaline phosphatase.

* TUR and TUR + CHI groups also showed an increase of levels of high-density lipoprotein (HLD)

* Additionally, TUR alone and plus chicory seed led to a significant reduction of parameters associated with NAFLD such as serum levels of TG/HDL-C and LDL-C/HDL-C ratio in TUR and TUR + CHI groups compared to placebo.

Taken altogether, turmeric used alone or combined other herbal remedy may be considered supplements for the prevention and treatment of NAFLD, pending to the confirmation of the larger sample size and multicenter human study.

Intake of turmeric in the form of supplement should be taken with extreme care to prevent overdose acute liver toxicity.

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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) Efficacy of curcumin/turmeric on liver enzymes in patients with non-alcoholic fatty liver disease: A systematic review of randomized controlled trials by Mansour-Ghanaei F1,2, Pourmasoumi M1, Hadi A1, Joukar F. (PubMed)
(2) Turmeric and chicory seed have beneficial effects on obesity markers and lipid profile in non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) by Ghaffari A1, Rafraf M2, Navekar R3, Sepehri B4, Asghari-Jafarabadi M5, Ghavami SM. (PubMed)
(3) Non-alcoholic Fatty Liver Disease (NAFLD)Treatment in Phytochemicals Perspective By Kyle J. Norton