Vitamin E is a natural antioxidant that has shown some promise in treating fatty liver disease. Fatty liver disease is a cluster of conditions involving a buildup of fat in your liver. Most of the people who have fatty liver are people who drink little to no alcohol but experience the same kind of damage to the organ as people who drink excessively. Rising levels of obesity and diabetes may be part of the reason more fatty liver conditions are being diagnosed. Right now, the only way to know you have fatty liver is to have your physician perform a test. In addition, there's no mainstream medical treatment for the condition.
Vitamin E
Vitamin E protects your body from damage caused by free radicals, which harm cells, tissues and organs. You can get lots of vitamin E through supplements and in wheat germ, corn, nuts, seeds, spinach, asparagus and vegetable oils. Vitamin E is used as an experimental therapy in research studies on cancer, heart disease, immune and metabolic disorders, dementia and liver disease. Although some promising results have been obtained, vitamin E is not an established treatment for fatty liver yet.
Fatty Liver
Fatty liver refers to a progressive spectrum of disorders involving an increase in fat in liver cells. On one end of the spectrum is simple steatosis, or an elevated amount of fat. This is what is known as nonalcoholic fatty liver disease. It's diagnosed when fat starts to take up between 5 and 10 percent of your liver's weight. The American Liver Foundation says about 25 percent of the population could have fatty liver disease, and some don't know it. It's often asymptomatic. For reasons that aren't fully clear, the disease can progress with inflammation and scarring. Left untreated, fatty liver can lead to cirrhosis and ultimately fail, a potentially fatal problem without a transplant.
Vitamin E Therapy in Fatty Liver Disease
Because oxidative stress is implicated in the development and progression of fatty liver disease, scientists have been studying whether antioxidants like vitamin E, as well as selenium and betaine, help treat the condition. Currently, no cure and no established treatment procedure exist for fatty liver disease. In studying people with nonalcoholic steatohepatitis, an advanced form of fatty liver, researchers publishing in "The New England Journal of Medicine" found that vitamin E significantly improved some of the features of the disease. For example, it alleviated ballooning of liver cells and it helped decrease the flow of enzymes the body produces when an organ is injured. In other research, vitamin E has been combined with dietary changes, which helped reduced the inflammation response that is in play when NAFLD first develops.
Not Primetime
Vitamin E is only an experimental treatment at this point, as evidence is still being gathered to determine how to use it effectively in fatty liver conditions. The Mayo Clinic, in its grading of existing evidence, gives vitamin E just a C, recognizing the work left to be done in research. Other treatments being examined for fatty liver disease include diabetes drugs as well as lifestyle interventions with weight control, diet and exercise.
References
- "Digestive Diseases and Sciences"; Nonalcoholic Fatty Liver Disease: A Clinical Review; David Sass et al.; January 2005
- "Digestive Diseases and Sciences"; Nonalcoholic Fatty Liver Disease: A Review and Update; Jeffrey R. Lewis and Smruti R. Mohant; March 2010
- "The New England Journal of Medicine"; Pioglitazone, Vitamin E, or Placebo for Nonalcoholic Steatohepatitis; Arun J. Sanyal et al.; May 6, 2010
- Medscape; Fatty Liver Disease -- A Major Cause of Obesity-Related Morbidity and Mortality; William F. Balistreri; June 22, 2005
- National Digestive Diseases Information Clearinghouse: Nonalcoholic Steatohepatitis
- MayoClinic.com: Vitamin E Evidence
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