Consuming melatonin for six weeks helps reduce fat accumulation in the liver
Scientists from the ibs.GRANADA, La Paz University Hospital (Madrid) and the University of Texas (United States) have taken an important step in the fight against Nonalcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH), a disease closely related to obesity and diabetes (diabesity).
In a study conducted with Zucker rats and recently published in the prestigious Journal of Pineal Research, researchers have shown that administering melatonin (a natural hormone secreted by the human body, but can also be artificially synthesized) for six weeks helps to reduce the accumulation of fat in the nonalcoholic liver. After the success of the study in rats, the next step will be to carry out clinical trials to test its effectiveness in humans.
Scientists have thus verified that the administration of melatonin (10 mg / Kg / day) reduces the accumulation of fat (steatosis) in the liver of obese rats. Hepatic steatosis constitutes the first stage of nonalcoholic fatty liver disease, where mitochondrial dysfunction (the cellular oven) plays a critical role in the development and pathogenesis of steatosis, closely related to obesity and diabetes. Since the prevalence of these two diseases continues to increase, non-alcoholic fatty liver has become a health problem that affects millions of people around the world.
This new finding was also associated with an improvement in liver inflammation manifested by a decrease in serum transaminases (ALT) and an improvement in liver histopathology and in mitochondrial function in melatonin-treated obese rats. These results are in line with those previously obtained by these researchers in the last four years, which shows that the pharmacological administration of melatonin combats obesity and diabetes in Zucker rats.
The study was carried out by a multidisciplinary team of researchers, led by the Department of Pharmacology of the University of Granada, and directed by the professor Ahmad Agil, member of the Group B-28 Neuropharmacology of Pain from the Instituto de Investigación Biosanitaria ibs.GRANADA. Also collaborating with it were G. Fernández Vázquez, from the Endocrinology and Nutrition Service of the La Paz University Hospital in Madrid, and Professor R. Reiter, from the Department of Structural Biology at the University of Texas in San Antonio (United States).
This study was funded by the SAF 2013-45752-R project of the Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness of Spain, and the CTS-109 group of the Junta de Andalucía.
Bibliographic reference:
Agil A, El-Hammadi M, Jiménez-Aranda A, Tassi M, Abdo W, Fernández-Vázquez G, Reiter R J. Melatonin Reduces Hepatic Mitochondrial Dysfunction in Diabetic Obese Rats. J Pineal Res. 2015 Apr 22. doi: 10.1111 / jpi.12241
Contact:
Ahmad Agil Abdullah
Department of Pharmacology of the UGR
Group B-28 Neuropharmacology of Ibs.GRANADA Pain
Phone: 958248794 - 958243539
E-mail: aagil@ugr.es
