Lycopene, Protects the Liver Cells Against the Risk of Hepatic Steatosis

By Kyle J. Norton

The liver is the largest internal organ that filters the blood from the digestive tract, before passing them to the rest of the body.

The liver also plays an essential role to produce cholesterol to build a strong cell wall, produce steroid hormones and vitamin D and aid the digestive function in food absorption and detoxify chemicals and metabolizes drugs.

Hepatic steatosis is a medical condition that reduces the function of the liver 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. Epidemiologically, over time, untreated hepatic steatosis can lead to liver metabolic dysfunction, inflammation, and advanced forms of nonalcoholic fatty liver disease.

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

Most common risk factors associated with the onset of hepatic steatosis are insulin resistance or diabetes, dyslipidemia, hypertension, metabolic syndrome, rapid weight loss, using hepatotoxic medications total parenteral nutrition (TPN).

The increased flux of fatty acids to the liver,  de novo lipogenesis, and/or reduced clearance through β-oxidation or very-low-density lipoprotein secretion are some mechanisms that cause the accumulation of intrahepatic fat.

Out of many prevalent factors involved in the onset of hepatic steatosis, some researchers 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 accelerates the incidence onset.

Dr. Michael D. Roberts, the lead scientist said, "Six weeks of WD feeding caused hepatic steatosis development as evidenced by the 2.25-fold increase in liver triacylglycerol content,...in adult Brown Norway rats".

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".

Lycopene is a phytochemical in the class of carotenoid, a natural pigment with no vitamin A activity found abundantly in tomatoes and other red fruits and vegetables, such as red carrots, watermelons, and papayas,

Tomatoes provide about 80% of the lycopene in the world diet. In plants, lycopene protects the host against excessive photodamage and perform various functions in photosynthesis.

On finding a potential compound for the prevention of liver disease, researchers examined the effects of lycopene on hepatic steatosis in an animal model.

In a model of high-fat diet rats, lycopene not only showed significant effect against the development of steatohepatitis but also inhibited nonalcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH) in the promotion of the early stage of liver cancer through its antioxidant activity.

In rats induced NAFLD by a hypercholesterolemic and high-fat diet, according to the tested analysis, after 7 weeks, there are clear differences in the classical antioxidant biomarkers and metabolic pattern associated with the inhibition of NAFLD between the diet and intake of lycopene from tomato juice.

Interestingly, tomato juice administration partially reverted the metabolic pattern from a high-fat diet to a normal diet in metabolites without exhibiting the redox state.

Taken altogether, lycopene found in tomato may be considered supplements for the improvement of liver metabolism against the risk liver disease, pending on the confirmation of the larger sample size and multicenter human study.

Intake of lycopene 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) 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)
(2) Lycopene and apo-10'-lycopenoic acid have differential mechanisms of protection against hepatic steatosis in β-carotene-9',10'-oxygenase knockout male mice by Ip BC1, Liu C2, Lichtenstein AH3, von Lintig J4, Wang XD. (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)