Docosahexanoic Acid Plus Vitamin D Treatment Improves Features of NAFLD in Children with Serum Vitamin D Deficiency: Results from a Single Centre Trial.
PLoS One. 2016 Dec 15;11(12):e0168216. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0168216. eCollection
RCT of 40 obese children, 500 mg of DHA, 800 IU of vitamin D, 1 year
DHA only helped some, DHA + Vitamin D was much better
See also Vitamin D Life
- Strong association of non alcoholic fatty liver disease and low vitamin D many studies
- Severe Non-Alcoholic fatty liver disease treated by Omega-3 – RCT April 2018
- Non-Alcoholic Fatty Liver Disease (NAFLD) treated by Vitamin D (20,000 IU weekly after loading dose) – RCT June 2016 many studies
- Non-Alcoholic Fatty Liver Disease treated by Omega-3 – meta-analysis Oct 2016
- Non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) reduced somewhat by 50,000 IU vitamin D every 2 weeks – RCT Sept 2014
- Liver Inflammation (NAFLD) is prevented by Vitamin D – review May 2015
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Della Corte C1, Carpino G2, De Vito R3, De Stefanis C4, Alisi A4, Cianfarani S5, Overi D6, Mosca A1, Stronati L7, Cucchiara S8, Raponi M9, Gaudio E6, Byrne CD10,11, Nobili V1,4.
BACKGROUND:
There are no licensed treatments for non alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) in adults or children. In NAFLD, several studies have shown a benefit of omega-3 fatty acid treatment on lipid profile, insulin-sensitivity and hepatic steatosis and it has also been suggested that Vitamin D treatment has potential antifibrotic properties in liver disease.
TRIAL DESIGN:
To date, however, there are no studies that have tested the combination of Docosahexanoic acid (DHA) and vitamin D treatment which may benefit the whole spectrum of disease in NAFLD. Our aim therefore, was to test the effect of daily DHA (500 mg) plus vitamin D (800 IU) treatment, in obese children with biopsy-proven NAFLD and vitamin D deficiency, in a randomized, double-blind placebo-controlled trial.
METHODS:
The 41/43 patients completed the study (18-treatment, 23-placebo). At 12 months: i) the main outcome was liver histology improvement, defined by NAS; ii) the secondary outcome was amelioration of metabolic parameters.
RESULTS:
DHA plus vitamin D treatment reduced the NAFLD Activity Score (NAS), in the treatment group (5.4 v1.92; p<0.001 for baseline versus end of study). There was no change in fibrosis score, but a reduction of the activation of hepatic stellate cells (HSC) and fibrillar collagen content was noted (3.51±1.66 v. 1.59±1.37; p = 0.003) in treatment group. Moreover, the triglycerides (174.5 vs. 102.15 mg/dl), ALT (40.25 vs. 24.5 UI/l) and HOMA-IR (4.59 vs. 3.42) were all decreased with treatment.
CONCLUSION:
DHA plus vitamin D treatment improved insulin-resistance, lipid profile, ALT and NAS. There was also decreased HSC activation and collagen content with treatment.
PMID: 27977757 PMCID: PMC5158039 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0168216