The Study
Inhibition of mTOR improves the impairment of acidification in autophagic vesicles caused by hepatic steatosis.
This study looked at liver cells from fat mice and saw that a certain cleanup process inside cells wasn’t working well. It also noticed that a drug called rapamycin seemed to help fix it, but we can’t be sure it caused the fix because the study wasn’t set up to prove cause and effect.
Analysis score
Maximum 44 for a cross-sectional study.
Where the score came from
In fatty livers, the tiny parts of liver cells that clean out trash aren't working well because they don't get acidic enough. A drug called rapamycin helps these cleaners work better.
Where does this study sit?
Reviews of RCTs (Meta-analyses)
Max 100Randomized Trials
Max 90Reviews of Cohort Studies
Max 85Cohort Studies
Max 72Reviews of Case-Control Studies
Max 63Case-Control Studies
Max 58Cross-Sectional & Case Series
Max 50Expert Opinion
Max 510 / 100
Quality score
Snapshots of a population at a single point in time, or descriptions of small groups. Can identify correlations and prevalence, but cannot determine cause and effect.
Key takeaways
Summary
Based on the study abstract and findings.
- 1This shows that fatty liver disease breaks an important cleanup system in cells, which might lead to more damage.
- 2Fixing this system could help treat the disease.
- 3Only 40.1% of cleanup bubbles were acidic in sick mouse liver cells, down from over 70% in healthy ones.
- 4The cleaning proteins were lower.
- 5Rapamycin helped fix this.
Score breakdown, methodology, conflicts of interest, evidence analysis & raw study data
Publication
Journal
Biochemical and biophysical research communications
Year
2016
Authors
Eisuke Nakadera, S. Yamashina, Kousuke Izumi, Y. Inami, Toshifumi Sato, H. Fukushima, Kazuyoshi Kon, K. Ikejima, T. Ueno, Sumio Watanabe
Related Content
Claims (3)
In fat mice with fatty liver, the liver cells have fewer 'acidic cleanup pockets' than healthy mice, which might mean their cells aren't cleaning themselves properly.
Treating liver cells from diabetic mice with a drug called rapamycin seems to boost their waste-cleaning process, which might help clear fat buildup in the liver.
In mice with fatty liver, certain proteins and their genetic instructions are lower in the liver's waste-processing units, which might mean those units aren't working as well as they should.
Not medical advice. For informational purposes only. Always consult a qualified healthcare professional before making health decisions.