Tag Archives: liver damage

June 17, 2022 · 11:52 pm

Your liver is just under three years old

The liver has a unique ability to regenerate after damage. However, it was unknown whether this ability decreases as we age. International scientists led by Dr. Olaf Bergmann at the Center for Regenerative Therapies Dresden (CRTD) at TU Dresden used a technique known as retrospective radiocarbon birth dating to determine the age of the human liver. They showed that no matter the person’s age, the liver is always on average less than three years old. The results demonstrate that aging does not influence liver renewal, making the liver an organ that replaces its cells equally well in young and old people.

The liver is an essential organ that takes care of clearing toxins in our bodies. Because it constantly deals with toxic substances, it is likely to be regularly injured. To overcome this, the liver has a unique capacity among organs to regenerate itself after damage. Because a lot of the body’s ability to heal itself and regenerate decreases as we age, scientists were wondering if the liver’s capacity to renew also diminishes with age.

The nature of liver renewal in humans also remained a mystery. The animal models provided contradictory answers. “Some studies pointed to the possibility that liver cells are long-lived while others showed a constant turnover. It was clear to us that if we want to know what happens in humans, we need to find a way to directly assess the age of human liver cells,” says Dr. Olaf Bergmann, research group leader at the Center for Regenerative Therapies Dresden (CRTD) at TU Dresden.

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Tagged as biological age, liver, liver damage, liver renewal

August 14, 2018 · 4:44 am

Alzheimer’s Risk Impacted by Liver, Diet – Study

Reduced levels of plasmalogens—a class of lipids created in the liver that are integral to cell membranes in the brain—are associated with an increased risk of Alzheimer’s Disease, according to new research presented this week at the Alzheimer’s Association International Conference (AAIC) 2018 by Mitchel A. Kling, MD, an associate professor of Psychiatry in the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania and the Veterans Affairs Medical Center.

Photo by David Cassolato on Pexels.com

Plasmalogens are created in the liver and are dispersed through the blood stream in the form of lipoproteins, which also transport cholesterol and other lipids to and from cells and tissues throughout the body, including the brain. Kling, and the multi-institutional Alzheimer’s Disease Metabolomics Consortium led by Rima F. Kaddurah-Daouk, PhD, at Duke University School of Medicine, developed three indices for measuring the amount of these lipids related to cognition, in order to identify whether reduced levels in the bloodstream are associated with an increased risk of Alzheimer’s disease, mild cognitive impairment (MCI), overall cognitive function, and/or other biomarkers of neurodegeneration in Alzheimer’s disease. The three indices measured: the ratios of plasmalogens to each other; the ratios of plasmalogens to their closely-related, more conventional lipid counterparts; and a combination of these two quantities. Continue reading →

Intra-day Fasting Cut Many Harmful Effects of Bad Food Choices

Scientists at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies have introduced information that when we eat may be as important as what we eat, ScienceDaily reported.

Their paper published in Cell Metabolism reported that mice limited to eating during an 8-hour period were healthier than mice allowed to eat freely throughout the day, regardless of the quality and content of their diet.

The aim of the study was to learn whether obesity and metabolic disease come from a high-fat diet or from disruption of metabolic cycles.

“It’s a dogma that a high-fat diet leads to obesity and that we should eat frequently when we are awake,” says Satchidananda Panda, an associate professor in the Regulatory Biology Laboratory and senior author of the paper. “Our findings, however, suggest that regular eating times and fasting for a significant number of hours a day might be beneficial to our health.”

The mice that ate fatty food frequently gained weight and developed high cholesterol, high blood glucose, liver damage and diminished motor control. The mice in the time-restricted group weighed 28 percent less and demonstrated no adverse health effects even though they ate the same amount of calories from the same fatty food. In addition, the time-restricted mice outperformed the unrestricted eaters and those on a normal diet when given an exercise test.

“This was a surprising result,” says Megumi Hatori, a postdoctoral researcher in Panda’s laboratory and a first author of the study. “For the last 50 years, we have been told to reduce our calories from fat and to eat smaller meals and snacks throughout the day. We found, however, that fasting time is important. By eating in a time-restricted fashion, you can still resist the damaging effects of a high-fat diet, and we did not find any adverse effects of time-restricted eating when eating healthy food.”

She cautioned against jumping to the conclusion that it is all right to eat lots of unhealthy foods as long as we observe the intra-day fast. “What we showed is under daily fasting the body can fight unhealthy food to a significant extent,” she says. “But there are bound to be limits.”

Restricting one’s eating to an eight hour period in a 24-hour day in no easy task for a human being with a normal working day and a family as opposed to a mouse in captivity. I think for the majority of us eat less; move more remains the rule.

There may be some benefits to be gained from intermittent fasting, perhaps on weekends.

Tony