Consuming a higher amount of leafy vegetables can help prevent liver disease, study states
| Dec 19, 2018, 10:57 IST
As children, we're always told that leafy vegetables are healthy to consume and should a part of our daily diets. Well, now a study claims that consuming leafy vegetables could prevent us from liver disease. Liver steatosis or fatty liver is a common disease that affects approximately 25 percent of the global population and the most important cause for it happens to be obesity due to high alcohol consumption. It will even surprise you to know that there is no particular cure for this.
In a study published in the journal PNAS, researchers from Karolinska Institute showed how a larger intake of inorganic nitrate, which occurs naturally in many types of vegetables, reduces accumulation of fat in the liver. The intake of inorganic nitrate also prevents the accumulation of fat in the liver. "When we supplemented with dietary nitrate to mice fed with a high-fat and sugar Western diet, we noticed a significantly lower proportion of fat in the liver," said Mattias Carlstrom, a researcher. "We think that these diseases are connected by similar mechanisms, where oxidative stress causes compromised nitric oxide signaling, which has a detrimental impact on cardiometabolic functions," said Carlstrom. "We now demonstrate an alternative way to produce nitric oxide, where more nitrate in our diet can be converted to nitric oxide and other bioactive nitrogen species in our body," Carlstrom added.
There is currently a debate going on as to what properties of vegetables make them healthy.
In a study published in the journal PNAS, researchers from Karolinska Institute showed how a larger intake of inorganic nitrate, which occurs naturally in many types of vegetables, reduces accumulation of fat in the liver. The intake of inorganic nitrate also prevents the accumulation of fat in the liver. "When we supplemented with dietary nitrate to mice fed with a high-fat and sugar Western diet, we noticed a significantly lower proportion of fat in the liver," said Mattias Carlstrom, a researcher. "We think that these diseases are connected by similar mechanisms, where oxidative stress causes compromised nitric oxide signaling, which has a detrimental impact on cardiometabolic functions," said Carlstrom. "We now demonstrate an alternative way to produce nitric oxide, where more nitrate in our diet can be converted to nitric oxide and other bioactive nitrogen species in our body," Carlstrom added.
There is currently a debate going on as to what properties of vegetables make them healthy.