Antioxidant defence mechanisms: new players in the pathogenesis of non-alcoholic steatohepatitis?
This comment discusses the study by Videla and colleagues in this issue of Clinical Science in which they have analysed surgical liver biopsies from obese patients with non-alcoholic fatty liver disease and demonstrate that fatty liver is associated with a state of oxidative stress and a decreased antioxidant activity. As the disease progresses to steatohepatitis, the defect in antioxidant systems increases. Thus efficiency of antioxidant defence mechanisms, by setting the threshold at which pro-oxidants would become injurious, might represent a determining factor for disease progression from stable steatosis to steatohepatitis.
Leclercq
Isabelle A
IA
Gastroenterology Unit, Belgian National Fonds for Scientific Research, Université Catholique de Louvain, Brussels, Belgium. isabelle_leclercq@wmi.usyd.edu.au
D000975:Antioxidants / Q000378:metabolism*; D003577:Cytochrome P-450 Enzyme System / Q000378:metabolism; D018450:Disease Progression; D005234:Fatty Liver / Q000378:metabolism*; D006801:Humans; D008099:Liver / Q000378:metabolism*; D018384:Oxidative Stress
D000975:Antioxidants; D003577:Cytochrome P-450 Enzyme System