Why the study?
The increasing prevalence of NAFLD poses prevention and treatment challenges, and the exact mechanism of betaine remains elusive.
This review highlights the potential mechanisms by which betaine supplementation may ameliorate non-alcoholic fatty liver disease, suggesting it as a potential therapeutic target.
Encourages mechanistic betaine research in NAFLD; leaves open any clinical role pending trials.
The increasing prevalence of non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) poses a growing challenge in terms of its prevention and treatment. The ‘multiple hits’ hypothesis of multiple insults, such as dietary fat intake, de novo lipogenesis, insulin resistance, oxidative stress, mitochondrial dysfunction, gut dysbiosis and hepatic inflammation, can provide a more accurate explanation of the pathogenesis of NAFLD. Betaine plays important roles in regulating the genes associated with NAFLD through anti-inflammatory effects, increased free fatty oxidation, anti-lipogenic effects and improved insulin resistance and mitochondrial function; however, the mechanism of betaine remains elusive.
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Chen et al. (2021) studied this question.
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