News by Subject Medicine & Health

Inflammatory processes in the liver lead to elevated cholesterol levels in people with diabetes, thus promoting subsequent vascular diseases. This is the result of a study by scientists of Helmholtz Zentrum München, Technische Universität München (TUM) and the Collaborative Research Center SFB 1118 at Heidelberg University Hospital. The paper, which has now been published in the journal Cell Reports, presents a previously unknown mechanism.

An experimental drug protected mice from one of the many ills of our cheeseburger and milkshake-laden Western diet -- non-alcoholic fatty liver disease. The drug reversed liver inflammation, injury and scarring in animals fed a high fat, sugar and cholesterol diet. The diet was designed to replicate the Western fast food diet and recreate the features of non-alcoholic fatty liver disease found in people. The research team plans further testing to move it into human trials.

Researchers at TMDU found that the YAP molecule is a key mediator in the identification and clearance of damaged cells from the liver. They showed that, in the absence of injury, YAP activation led to hepatocyte proliferation. However, when injury was induced to mouse liver, it instead induced hepatocytes to migrate to the hepatic sinusoids, undergo cell death, and be degraded by the immune system.

In a landmark study of over 50,000 hospital admissions, investigators demonstrated the feasibility of introducing universal screening for alcohol misuse to identify patients at risk. They showed that patients can be easily categorized based on a simple risk score to identify people with high rates of emergency department attendance, recurrent hospital admissions, and high risk of alcohol-related liver disease. These patients can be selectively targeted with effective treatments for alcohol misuse, potentially reducing the burden of alcohol-related harm including alcoholic liver disease.

Scientists from Princeton University have successfully tested a cell-culture system that will allow researchers to perform laboratory-based studies of long-term hepatitis B virus (HBV) infections with the goal of testing new therapies.