News by Subject Medicine & Health

Researchers at University of California San Diego School of Medicine found that a diet low in free sugars (those added to foods and beverages and occurring naturally in fruit juices) resulted in significant improvement in nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) in adolescent boys.

A randomized clinical study of adolescent boys with nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) found that a diet low in free sugars (those sugars added to foods and beverages and occurring naturally in fruit juices) resulted in significant improvement in NAFLD compared to a usual diet.

The proportion of liver transplants in the United States for alcohol-associated liver disease increased between 2002 and 2016, with much of the increase associated with a decrease in liver transplant for hepatitis C virus infection because of antiviral therapy. This observational study used data from the United Network for Organ Sharing for all liver transplants during the 15-year period and the national study group consisted of nearly 33,000 patients, including 9,438 patients with a diagnosis of alcohol-associated liver disease.

The proportion of US liver transplants for alcohol-associated liver disease (ALD) has doubled in the last 15 years, in part due to broader acceptance of waiving the mandated period of sobriety before transplants for this population, according to a study by researchers at UC San Francisco, which showed ongoing regional geographic variations in liver transplant rates for ALD patients, whose long-term survival rate is slightly lower than other liver transplant patients. The study appears Jan. 22, 2019, in JAMA Internal Medicine.

Salk researchers have developed a new system that lets them study in more detail than ever exactly how, where and when the metabolic protein AMPK carries out its molecular and therapeutic functions.

In a paper to be published in the September/December 2019 issue of TECHNOLOGY, a team of researchers from the IIT, Chicago, has developed a novel microfluidic device for measuring in real-time the cholesterol secreted from liver tissue-chip containing human hepatocytes. This innovation can help researchers employing microfluidic cultures to study the effects of drugs such as statins on lowering cholesterol in real-time.

Most patients with ulcerative colitis (UC) have mild-to-moderate disease characterized by periods of activity or remission, but practice variations exist in disease management. A new clinical guideline from the American Gastroenterological Association (AGA) published in Gastroenterology, the official journal of AGA, addresses the medical management of these patients, focusing on use of both oral and topical 5-aminosalicylates (5-ASA) medications, rectal corticosteroids and oral budesonide, to promote high-quality care for UC patients.