Cranberry, the Remedy for Reducing the Risk Treatment of Nonalcoholic Fatty Liver Disease (NAFLD)

By Kyle J. Norton

The liver is the largest internal organ found in the human which plays an essential role in filtering the blood from the digestive system before passing them to other parts of the body.

The liver also produces cholesterol, a waxy substance which aids digestion, builds cell membranes and produces vitamin D and steroid hormones.

Liver disease is a class of medical conditions characterized by the reduction partly or completely the function of the liver, including liver failure.

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)(1).

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

According to world statistics, nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) is normally known as a disease of the Western world(2). However, due to the economic prosperity of Southeast Asian(3), the disease also was found in a large population in the cities, causing concerns of many scientists in the region(4)(6).

According to the joint assessment of the prevalence of non-alcoholic fatty liver disease and risk factors for advanced fibrosis and mortality in the US, led by the Stanford University School of Medicine, "The prevalence of NAFLD in the United States (U.S.) has risen from 18% in 1988–1991 to 31% in 2011–2012. Estimates of NAFLD prevalence for adults in Western countries are 20–30%, with much higher prevalence in adults with obesity (80–90%), diabetes (30–50%), and hyperlipidemia (90%)"(5).

The exact causes of NAFLD aren't well understood. Some researchers suggested that certain risk factors such as long-term use of certain medications(8), genetic preposition(8), insulin resistance(8), high cholesterol(8) and triglycerides(8) in the blood, polycystic ovary syndrome(8), metabolic syndrome(8), obesity(8), and type 2 diabetes(8) are associated with the onset of the disease.

Cranberry is an evergreen dwarf shrub, genus Vaccinium, belongings to the family Ericaceae, native to Northern America and Southern Asia. Because of its health benefits, cranberry has been cultivated in some parts of the world for commercial profit and used in traditional and herbal medicine to treat wounds, urinary disorders, diarrhea, diabetes, stomach ailments, and liver problems.

On finding a potential compound for the prevention and treatment of liver diseases, researchers investigated cranberry effects on metabolic profiles, including that during the progression of non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD), in a high-fat diet (HFD)-fed C57BL/6 mice.

According to the results of the experiment, the application of cranberry reduced the levels of oxidative stress in mice that were fed HFD diets with supplementation of 1 and 5% cranberry powder, compared to HFD-fed control mice.

1 week after beginning the diets to the end of the study, the body weight of mice in the cranberry-treatment groups was significantly lower, compared to mice in the HFD-fed control group.

Furthermore, during the early treatment phase, the injection of cranberry suppressed the elevation of serum triglycerides, leading to the smaller of the adipocytes in the adipose tissues in HFD-fed mice compared to the cells in HFD-fed control mice. 

More importantly, the nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) characteristics of the levels of lipid-droplet formation and hepatocyte ballooning in the liver were drastically decreased in cranberry-supplemented-HFD-fed mice relative to the levels in HFD-fed control mice.

Based on the findings, researchers said, " Cranberry ameliorates HFD-induced metabolic disturbances, particularly during the early treatment stage, and exhibits considerable potential for preventing the progression of NAFLD.".

Taken altogether, cranberry may be considered a functional food for the treatment of  NAFLD, pending to the confirmation of the 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.

Sources
(1) Cranberry Attenuates Progression of Non-alcoholic Fatty Liver Disease Induced by High-Fat Diet in Mice by Shimizu K1, Ono M2, Imoto A1, Nagayama H1, Tetsumura N1, Terada T1, Tomita K2, Nishinaka T. (PubMed)
(2) Non-alcoholic Fatty Liver Disease (NAFLD)Treatment in Phytochemicals Perspective by Kyle J. Norton