Vitamin E as a treatment for Non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD)

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WEDNESDAY, April 28 (HealthDay News) — A new study has identified vitamin E, also known a d-alpha tocopherol, as a viable treatment that can provide relief for many of the estimated 10 million Americans who have the most common chronic liver disease.

“This clearly shows that vitamin E is effective for treatment of patients with nonalcoholic steatohepatitis (fatty infiltration of the liver) who don’t have active diabetes,” said study author Dr. Arun J. Sanyal, chairman of the division of gastroenterology, hepatology and nutrition at Virginia Commonwealth University. A report on the trial is published in the April 28 online edition of the New England Journal of Medicine.

The 96-week study included 247 adults with the condition, none of whom had diabetes. Some patients were given 30 milligrams a day of Actos, some were given 800 International Units of vitamin E daily and others were given a placebo. A significant rate of improvement in markers of the disease, such as inflammation, was seen in 43 percent of those getting vitamin E, compared to 19 percent of those getting placebo. Similar improvement was seen in 34 percent of those getting Actos, compared to 19 percent of those getting placebo, a difference that was not statistically significant.

Actos might be a viable treatment for some people with fatty liver disease, but the study found its use was associated with significant weight gain that continued throughout the study, Sanyal said.

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Non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) is one cause of fatty liver changes, when fat is deposited (steatosis) in the liver when this is not due to excessive alcohol use. It is related to insulin resistance and the metabolic syndrome, and may respond to treatments originally developed for other insulin-resistant states (e.g. diabetes mellitus type 2), such as weight loss, metformin and thiazolidinediones.[1]

Non-alcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH) is the most extreme form of NAFLD, which is regarded as a major cause of cirrhosis of the liver of unknown cause.[2]

  1. a b c d e f Adams LA, Angulo P (2006). “Treatment of non-alcoholic fatty liver disease”. Postgrad Med J 82: 315–22. doi:10.1136/pgmj.2005.042200. PMID 16679470. http://pmj.bmj.com/cgi/content/full/82/967/315.
  2. a b Clark JM, Diehl AM (2003). “Nonalcoholic fatty liver disease: an underrecognized cause of cryptogenic cirrhosis”. JAMA 289: 3000–4. doi:10.1001/jama.289.22.3000. PMID 12799409.