Collard Greens Protects the Liver Against Hepatic Damage

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.

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

Most common types of liver disease in the US are

* Hepatitis C (26%) is a liver disease caused by liver inflammation caused by viral Hepatitis C, leading to irreversible liver scars. Over time, the condition can also induce liver cancer.
and
* Alcoholic liver disease (21%) is a condition that caused long-term excessive alcohol drinking. It is known that years of alcohol abuse can cause the liver to become inflamed and swollen. Over time, it has been found to induce the formation of liver scars, known as cirrhosis. Cirrhosis is the final stage of liver disease.

According to the statistic, in the US, cirrhosis and other chronic liver diseases are common disease-related causes of death. Approximately 31,000 people in the U.S. die each year from cirrhosis.

Sadly, approximately, 3.5 to 4.6 million people in the U.S. are chronically infected with the hepatitis C virus.

Liver damage and disease can also be caused by long-term intake of certain medications, such as paracetamol and Illegal drugs such as cocaine-induced liver injury.

Symptoms of liver diseases include persistent jaundice and gastrointestinal discomforts, abdominal pain, and swelling, leg and ankles swelling, itching, and pale color of stool.

 
Collard Green is a species of Brassica Oleracea, belongings to the family Brassicaceae with unknown origin. Today, the plant is cultivated commercially for its thick, slightly bitter edible leaves.

On finding a potential plant that process liver protective activity researchers examined the preventive effects of I3C found in Brassica family vegetables, including Collard Greens against ethanol (EtOH)-induced liver injury.

In the well-established chronic-plus-binge alcohol exposure model, chronic treatment with I3C alleviated EtOH-induced liver injury and hepatocyte apoptosis, but not steatosis, by attenuating elevated oxidative stress.

In other words, I3C protected the liver against damage by decreasing levels of hepatic lipid peroxidation, hydrogen peroxide, CYP2E1, NADPH-oxidase, and protein acetylation associated with the onset of oxidative diseases.

The liver protective activity was found in the maintenance of mitochondrial complex I, II, and III protein levels and activities in oxidative phosphorylation.

Furthermore, hepatic proinflammatory cytokines involved in liver damage were also inhibited by the increasing production of antioxidant enzymes and decreasing free fatty acid release.

Based on the findings, researchers said, "Collectively, I3C prevented EtOH-induced liver injury via attenuating the damaging effect of ethanol on the gut-liver-adipose tissue axis. Therefore, I3C may also have a high potential for translational research in treating or preventing other types of hepatic injury associated with oxidative stress and inflammation".

Taken altogether, collard green may be considered a functional food for the prevention and treatment of liver damage, 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) Preventive effects of indole-3-carbinol against alcohol-induced liver injury in mice via antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, and anti-apoptotic mechanisms: Role of gut-liver-adipose tissue axis by Choi Y1, Abdelmegeed MA2, Song BJ. (PubMed)