News by Subject Medicine & Health

Basic science research explores the effects of impaired glycine metabolism in nonalcoholic fatty liver disease - and how to potentially use glycine-based treatment to help people with NAFLD.

MIT engineers have now developed a diagnostic tool, based on nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR), that could be used to detect both fatty liver disease and liver fibrosis.

Patients with liver cirrhosis display a wide range of clinical symptoms. A prospective study conducted by MedUni Vienna has now shown that blood levels of biomarkers for systemic inflammation increase over the various stages of the disease and can predict the development of complications, even in previously asymptomatic patients.

Gut hormones play an important role in regulating fat production in the body. One key hormone, released a few hours after eating, turns off fat production by regulating gene expression in the liver, but this regulation is abnormal in obesity, researchers at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign found in a new study.

Men who have the Western world's most common genetic disorder, haemochromatosis, are ten times more likely to develop liver cancer, according to a major new study.

Triclosan, an antimicrobial found in many soaps and other household items, worsens fatty liver disease in mice fed a high-fat diet.

On behalf of Childhood Liver Disease Research Network (ChiLDReN), Texas Children's Hospital and Baylor College of Medicine researchers report that prolonged treatment with Maraxilibat resulted in clinically meaningful improvements in debilitating itching (pruritus) and related quality of life outcomes in children with Alagille syndrome. The novel pharmacological approach addresses a major unfulfilled therapeutic need to control severe and relentless itching in pediatric patients with Alagille syndrome.

Fifty fragments of proteins, termed peptides, have been identified in the urine of liver fibrosis patients in a new study that could pave the way for a potential diagnostic urine test for the condition if further validated.