On-Site PhD conferral mr. Kay H.M. Roumans
Supervisor: Prof.dr. P. Schrauwen
Co-supervisors: Dr. V. Schrauwen-Hinderling, Dr.ir. L. Lindeboom
Key words: non-alcoholic fatty liver, saturated fat, liver glycogen, insulin sensitivity, MRI
"Liver substrate metabolism in nonalcoholic fatty liver: role of hepatic lipid composition and hepatic glycogen measured by MR-techniques"
Non-alcoholic fatty liver (NAFL) is the leading cause of chronic liver disease and very common in obesity. NAFL is strongly associated with metabolic diseases such as cardiovascular disease and type II diabetes. Despite the important role of NAFL in metabolic disease, knowledge on the development of NAFL and its contribution to cardiometabolic disease is limited, due to the limited amount of techniques available. This PhD research describes the non-invasive investigation of the liver energy metabolism in NAFL using advanced MRI methodology. Specifically, the research focuses on the role of liver fat composition (types of fat) and liver glycogen (sugar stores). These studies showed that in NAFL, the fraction of liver saturated fatty acids (SFA) is increased and the use of liver glycogen is reduced and furthermore, that high liver SFA fractions may hamper liver insulin sensitivity, an important measure for metabolic health. Therefore, the liver SFA fraction and use of liver glycogen could be interesting novel targets in the prevention and treatment of NAFL and other metabolic diseases.
