Fatty liver disease can cause cirrhosis and cancer
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A popular medicine to treat obesity and diabetes now shows benefits in the fight against mortal liver disease.
Semaglutida, marketed under names, including Ozempic and Wogovy, helps weight loss and blood sugar regulation by imitating a natural hormone, LPG-1, which slows down and triggers the release of insulin. Now, researchers have discovered that the medicine can also stop or in some cases even reverse the condition known as steatohepatitis (MASH) associated with metabolic dysfunction.
“This potentially sacrifices a fundamental approach to the management of this condition,” says Philip Newsome in King’s College London. “It’s quite exciting for patients.”
Mash, formally called Nash, is the serious form of non -alcoholic fatty liver disease marked by a greater accumulation of fats in the liver that leads to inflammatory and fibrosis formation, the formation of scar tissue and, sometimes, cirrhosis and cancer. Puree is usually linked to obesity and type 2 diabetes.
In a 2020 trial that involved 320 people, Newsome and his colleagues discovered that a daily injection of semaglutidas led to a reduction in liver and inflammatory fat in 59 percent of people with mash. But a more recent study in 71 patients showed no benefits of a weekly regime.
To obtain a broader vision, Newsome and Arun Sanyal in the Virginia Commonwealth University began a larger essay that involved 1195 patients with puree in 253 clinical sites in 37 countries. On average, participants were 56 years old with a body mass index or 34.6. Approximately half had type 2 diabetes.
The doctors prescribed each participant a weekly semaglutidal injection or a placebo to take for four and a half years. The dose, gradually increasing in the first four months to 2.4 milligrams, corresponds to that used in Wegovy and was chosen according to previous test results. They were also offered lifestyle advice to encourage a healthy diet and exercise.
While the full study period is ongoing, after 72 weeks, the researchers analyzed the results of the biopsy of the first 800 patients, including 266 who had placebo injections. They discovered that 62.9 percent of those semaglutidas bars had marks reductions in liver and inflammatory fat, compared to 34.3 percent of the placebo group. Fibrosis improved for 36.8 percent of the treated group but only 22.4 percent of the placebo group. Around a third of all treated patients, and 16.1 percent of patients with placebo, both benefits had.
Weight loss alone may have contributed to such improvements, since people in the treated group lost an average or 10.5 percent of their body weight, compared to only 2 percent of body weight for those who take plaques. But treatment could also be directed directly to the process that causes the disease, in this regard, more research is needed to completely understand the mechanisms.
“Nothing has yet demonstrated, but it may be that part of the effect of medications similar to LPG-1 is that they act on immune cells to classify or temper inflammation,” says Newsome.
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