Natural Compounds for Counteracting Nonalcoholic Fatty Liver Disease (NAFLD): Advantages and Limitations of the Suggested Candidates.

Noel Salvoza,Claudio Tiribelli,Pablo J Giraudi,Natalia Rosso

doi:10.3390/ijms23052764

Noel Salvoza, Claudio Tiribelli + Show 2 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.3390/ijms23052764

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Abstract

The booming prevalence of nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) in adults and children will threaten the health system in the upcoming years. The “multiple hit” hypothesis is the currently accepted explanation of the complex etiology and pathophysiology of the disease. Some of the critical pathological events associated with the development of NAFLD are insulin resistance, steatosis, oxidative stress, inflammation, and fibrosis. Hence, attenuating these events may help prevent or delay the progression of NAFLD. Despite an increasing understanding of the mechanisms involved in NAFLD, no approved standard pharmacological treatment is available. The only currently recommended alternative relies on lifestyle modifications, including diet and physical activity. However, the lack of compliance is still hampering this approach. Thus, there is an evident need to characterize new therapeutic alternatives. Studies of food bioactive compounds became an attractive approach to overcome the reticence toward lifestyle changes. The present study aimed to review some of the reported compounds with beneficial properties in NAFLD; namely, coffee (and its components), tormentic acid, verbascoside, and silymarin. We provide details about their protective effects, their mechanism of action in ameliorating the critical pathological events involved in NAFLD, and their clinical applications.

Highlights

Nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) is strongly associated with clinical conditions such as overweight or obesity, type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM), hypertension, hypertriglyceridemia, and low HDL cholesterol, all of which constitute the essential elements in the spectrum of the metabolic syndrome (MS)
Liver steatosis was not attenuated by caffeine or Coffee intake was not associated with any lower odds of [51] hepatic steatosis
NAFLD is a multifactorial disease with complex mechanisms as proposed in the “multiple hit” model [7], the pathogenesis could be initially explained by hepatic fat accumulation or steatosis

Summary

Introduction

Nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) is strongly associated with clinical conditions such as overweight or obesity, type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM), hypertension, hypertriglyceridemia, and low (high-density lipoprotein) HDL cholesterol, all of which constitute the essential elements in the spectrum of the metabolic syndrome (MS). For these reasons, NAFLD is considered as the hepatic manifestation of MS [1]. NAFLD is an umbrella term that comprises a wide spectrum of disease and commonly represented by two phenotypes, namely nonalcoholic fatty liver (NAFL) and non-alcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH). NASH tends to progress to fibrosis and cirrhosis, and eventually to hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) [6]

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