title: Kefir improves fatty liver syndrome by inhibiting the lipogenesis pathway in leptin-deficient ob/ob knockout mice.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  Fatty liver disease is commonly associated with obesity, insulin resistance and diabetes. Severe fatty liver is sometimes accompanied by steatohepatitis and may lead to the development of hepatocellular carcinoma. At present, there is no effective treatment for non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD); thus, recent investigations have focused on developing effective therapeutics to treat this condition. This study aimed to evaluate the effects of kefir on the hepatic lipid metabolism of ob/ob mice, which are commonly used to model fatty liver disease.
  
  
  RESULTS
  In this study, we used leptin receptor-deficient ob/ob mice as an animal disease model of NAFLD. Six-week-old ob/ob mice were orally administered the dairy product kefir (140 mg kg(-1) of body weight (BW) per day) for 4 weeks. The data demonstrated that kefir improved fatty liver syndrome on BW, energy expenditure and basal metabolic rate by inhibiting serum glutamate oxaloacetate transaminase (GOT) and glutamate pyruvate transaminase (GPT) activities (P<0.05) and by decreasing the triglyceride (TG) and total cholesterol (TC) contents of the liver (P<0.05). Oral kefir administration also significantly reduced the macrovesicular fat quantity in liver tissue. In addition, kefir markedly decreased the expression of the genes sterol regulatory element-binding protein 1 (SREBP1), fatty acid synthase (FAS) and acetyl-CoA carboxylase (ACC) (P<0.05) but not the expression of peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor α (PPARα) or hepatic carnitine palmitoyltransferase-1α (CPT1α) in the livers of ob/ob mice.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  On the basis of these results, we conclude that kefir improves NAFLD on BW, energy expenditure and basal metabolic rate by inhibiting the lipogenesis pathway and that kefir may have the potential for clinical application to the prevention or treatment of NAFLD.
authors: Department of Bioresources, Da-Yeh University, Changhwa, Taiwan.
authors: H-L
authors: HL
authors: Chen
authors: Department of Life Sciences, Agricultural Biotechnology Center, National Chung Hsing University, Taichung, Taiwan.
authors: Y-T
authors: YT
authors: Tung
authors: Department of Life Sciences, Agricultural Biotechnology Center, National Chung Hsing University, Taichung, Taiwan.
authors: C-L
authors: CL
authors: Tsai
authors: Department of Life Sciences, Agricultural Biotechnology Center, National Chung Hsing University, Taichung, Taiwan.
authors: C-W
authors: CW
authors: Lai
authors: Department of Life Sciences, Agricultural Biotechnology Center, National Chung Hsing University, Taichung, Taiwan.
authors: Z-L
authors: ZL
authors: Lai
authors: 1] Department of Life Sciences, Agricultural Biotechnology Center, National Chung Hsing University, Taichung, Taiwan [2] Department of Surgery, Taichung Hospital, Ministry of Health and Welfare, Taichung, Taiwan.
authors: H-C
authors: HC
authors: Tsai
authors: 1] Department of Life Sciences, Agricultural Biotechnology Center, National Chung Hsing University, Taichung, Taiwan [2] Department of Surgery, Taichung Veterans General Hospital, Taichung, Taiwan.
authors: Y-L
authors: YL
authors: Lin
authors: Department of Biological Science and Technology, National Chiao Tung University, Hsinchu, Taiwan.
authors: C-H
authors: CH
authors: Wang
authors: 1] Department of Life Sciences, Agricultural Biotechnology Center, National Chung Hsing University, Taichung, Taiwan [2] Rong Hsing Research Center for Translational Medicine and the iEGG Center, National Chung Hsing University, Taichung, Taiwan.
authors: C-M
authors: CM
authors: Chen
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D001481:Basal Metabolism; D015415:Biomarkers / Q000378:metabolism; D015153:Blotting, Western; D043302:Cultured Milk Products / Q000378:metabolism*; D004195:Disease Models, Animal; D004734:Energy Metabolism; D005786:Gene Expression Regulation; D050356:Lipid Metabolism; D008099:Liver / Q000378:metabolism*; D051379:Mice; D018345:Mice, Knockout; D008820:Mice, Obese; D065626:Non-alcoholic Fatty Liver Disease / Q000178:diet therapy / Q000378:metabolism* / Q000503:physiopathology; D009929:Organ Size; D054411:Receptors, Leptin / Q000172:deficiency; D015398:Signal Transduction; D051780:Sterol Regulatory Element Binding Protein 1 / Q000378:metabolism*
chemical_list: D015415:Biomarkers; D054411:Receptors, Leptin; C497388:Srebf1 protein, mouse; D051780:Sterol Regulatory Element Binding Protein 1