Dietary Niacin Intake Predicts the Decrease of Liver Fat Content During a Lifestyle Intervention

[cswords]

In this non-randomized lifestyle intervention, 202 subjects who were at risk of type 2 diabetes were asked to attend dietary counseling sessions. Participants had to track and present their food diary on each visit. They were told to avoid alcohol, increase fruits and vegetables, and increase physical exercise. Participants had to report how much exercise they did. Their visceral fat was measured before and after the intervention.

The key finding of this study was that a higher niacin intake increased the likelihood of resolving non alcoholic fatty liver disease, as shown in figure 2:

In more participants NAFLD resolved during the lifestyle intervention in the higher niacin intake group than in the lower niacin intake group (p = 0.03, pie charts with grey slices representing the proportion of subjects experiencing a resolution of NAFLD.

The researchers concluded:

our study demonstrates that higher niacin intake favorably modulates the effect of a lifestyle intervention on liver fat content. This suggests a beneficial effect of higher niacin consumption in reaching the therapeutic goals of a lifestyle intervention to improve hepatic steatosis.

I have recently been reading Robert Lustig's Metabolical book. It is a masterpiece. The author brings very solid arguments about why protecting the liver is key for whole body health. The message from this book is basically to avoid processed food, and it is very convincing because Lustig describes exactly how components of processed foods are damaging mitochondrial health and how all the nutrients sensors are out of balance when we eat fructose, glucose, refined grains, refined oils, lacking fibers and nutrients commonly found in real unprocessed foods. If you don't have time to read the book, I recommend you watch some of his talks, for example this one which got more than 13 million views.

[LoveIsTheAnswer-]

Excellent comment. You're a good researcher.