Not all sugar is produced equal. While we tend to believe of sugar as the white foodstuff we buy in bags and that’s a major contributor to conditions such as obesity and diabetes, there are actually several types of sugar molecule along with different properties and effects. Now scientists have actually found that one naturally-occurring kind of sugar called trehalose could actually assistance stay clear of a type of liver disease. Could it be that consuming sugar may not be so bad for us after all – if only we can easily discover the right type?
Although all sugars are composed of the same basic ingredients (carbon, hydrogen and oxygen), these components can easily be arranged in different ways, which can easily have actually fairly different effects on the body. For example, glucose is a type of sugar which is readily absorbed and converted to energy by all cells of the body. By contrast, fructose is taken up almost entirely by liver cells, where it is converted directly in to fat.
Eating too much fructose, which is found in fruit yet also in soft drinks, can easily cause your liver to build up fat inside its cells, as can easily drinking too much alcohol. The non-alcoholic version of fatty liver disease (NALFD) is actually a relatively benign condition and the majority of those affected experience limited or no symptoms. yet sometimes it can easily progress to hepatitis (inflammation of the liver), cirrhosis (tissue damage) and even liver cancer.
This has actually become a serious public health problem because NALFD is now so common. It affects over one billion people global and is found in up to 80% of overweight people. At least one in ten liver transplants are as a result of conditions that progressed from NAFLD. Yet no drugs are presently available that reverse the build-up of fat in liver cells.
Cellular spring cleaning
Scientists at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis wanted to see if liver cells could be tricked in to thinking that they were short of energy and so would certainly consume their own internal fats, a process called autophagy. Recent research suggests this process of cellular spring-cleaning could reverse the build-up of damaging deposits related to a number of different diseases, including Huntington’s disease and Parkinson’s disease.
To trick the cells, the Washington researchers turned to trehalose sugar, which is found in shiitake and oyster mushrooms. They found the trehalose efficiently blocked the uptake of glucose in to liver cells. Confirming earlier job by others groups, they additionally showed that trehalose reasonable energy levels in the cells and induced the hallmark features of autophagy. This proved that the liver cells had been tricked in to a sense of starvation.
The scientists then fed trehalose to mice that had created fatty livers after consuming a higher fructose diet for ten days. Adding 3% trehalose to the mice’s drinking water induced markers of autophagy in their livers, reasonable their blood levels of fat and cholesterol levels and prevented the accumulation of liver fat.
The researchers suggest this means trehalose sugar may have actually the potential for use as a novel “nutraceutical” – a meals product along with medicinal or health-promoting properties – to treat NAFLD or even others diseases by triggering autophagy.
The amounts of sugar in meals and drink
Unknown adverse effects
This isn’t the very first time a sugar-related molecule has actually been proposed to have actually potential health-promoting effects. Oligofructose and inulin are both long chains of sugar molecules that increase levels of “good bacteria” in our guts and impart far fewer calories to the physique compared to much more commonly used sugars, Despite the fact that they are additionally much much less sweet. As a result, they are considered by some to be beneficial for health.
But prior to we start stirring trehalose in to our tea, we must recognise that we don’t know exactly what others effects large doses of the sugar might have actually on the rest of our body.
For example, the method it blocks glucose uptake by cells is similar to the process that induces raised blood sugar levels in diabetes. Human intestines additionally contain the enzyme trehalase, which converts most of the trehalose we consume into glucose, so a large dose would certainly probably be required for the trehalose to reach the liver. For humans, ingesting an equivalent quantity of trehalose as the mice in the experiment would certainly mean consuming another 1,000 calories per day, which could result in considerable weight gain.
It appears unlikely that consuming any sugar in large amounts would certainly not come devoid of potential health drawbacks. yet even if trehalose does not turn out to be a brand-new wonder sugar along with the potential to treat human diseases, this brand-new research at least gives us chance of finding a brand-new method to tackle non-alcoholic fatty liver disease.
Clett Erridge, Honorary research fellow, Department of Cardiovascular Sciences, University of Leicester
This information was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.
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