Brian DeBosch, Washington University School of Medicine (IMAGE)
Caption
Nonalcoholic fatty liver disease, a condition closely linked to obesity, affects roughly 25 percent of people in the US. There is no drug treatment for the disease, although weight loss can reduce the buildup of fat in the liver. Now, studying mice, new research shows that a natural sugar called trehalose prevents the sugar fructose -- thought to be a major contributor to nonalcoholic fatty liver disease -- from entering the liver and triggers a cellular housekeeping process that cleans up excess fat buildup inside liver cells. The research, led by Brian DeBosch, M.D., Ph.D., of Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, appears Feb. 23 in the journal Science Signaling.
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Robert Boston
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