How sugar turns into liver fat
Dietary fructose feeds hepatic lipogenesis via microbiota-derived acetate
Not medical advice. For informational purposes only. Always consult a healthcare professional. Terms
When mice eat a lot of fructose (like in soda), their gut bacteria make acetate, which the liver turns into fat — even if a key enzyme (ACLY) is broken. Fructose also tells the liver to make more fat-making tools, all by itself.
Surprising Findings
Deleting ACLY had zero effect on fructose-induced fat production.
ACLY has been the textbook enzyme for turning carbs into fat for decades. Clinical trials are even targeting it to treat fatty liver—this study says it’s irrelevant for fructose.
Practical Takeaways
Reduce sugary drinks—especially fast consumption—to lower the risk of gut bacteria turning sugar into liver fat.
Not medical advice. For informational purposes only. Always consult a healthcare professional. Terms
When mice eat a lot of fructose (like in soda), their gut bacteria make acetate, which the liver turns into fat — even if a key enzyme (ACLY) is broken. Fructose also tells the liver to make more fat-making tools, all by itself.
Surprising Findings
Deleting ACLY had zero effect on fructose-induced fat production.
ACLY has been the textbook enzyme for turning carbs into fat for decades. Clinical trials are even targeting it to treat fatty liver—this study says it’s irrelevant for fructose.
Practical Takeaways
Reduce sugary drinks—especially fast consumption—to lower the risk of gut bacteria turning sugar into liver fat.
Publication
Journal
Nature
Year
2020
Authors
Steven Zhao, Cholsoon Jang, Joyce Liu, Kahealani Uehara, M. Gilbert, Luke T. Izzo, Xianfeng Zeng, S. Trefely, Sully Fernandez, Alessandro Carrer, Katelyn D. Miller, Z. Schug, N. Snyder, T. Gade, Paul M. Titchenell, Joshua D. Rabinowitz, K. Wellen
Related Content
Claims (6)
When mice eat fructose (a sugar found in fruit and soda), their liver turns on genes that make fat—even if you block the usual ways the body processes sugar or remove gut bacteria. It’s like fructose itself has a secret signal that tells the liver to start making fat.
When mice eat a lot of fructose (like in sugary drinks), their gut bacteria make a chemical called acetate, which their liver uses to build new fat—without needing the usual pathway, and this acetate ends up being a major source of the fat’s building blocks.
When scientists removed the good bacteria from mice’s guts, the mice made way less fat from fructose (like sugar in soda), even though they still processed the sugar the same way — proving that the bacteria’s waste product, acetate, is the main building block for making fat in the liver without using the usual pathway.
When mice slowly eat a lot of fructose (a sugar found in fruit and soda), their livers start making more fat using two different biological tools—ACLY and ACSS2. To stop the liver from making extra fat, you have to block both tools at the same time.
When mice eat a lot of fructose (like in sugary drinks), their liver turns on a special enzyme called ACSS2 that helps turn gut bacteria’s waste product (acetate) into fat, making the liver store more fat.