Department of Endocrinology and Diabetes, Xiamen Diabetes Institute, The First Affiliated Hospital of Xiamen University, No.55 Zhenhai Road, Xiamen, 361003, China.
Xiamen Clinical Medical Center for Endocrine and Metabolic Diseases, Xiamen, China.
Sci Rep. 2021 Jun 28;11(1):13415. doi: 10.1038/s41598-021-92918-1.
Nonalcoholic fatty liver disease is likely to be associated with increased circulating branched-chain amino acids. We investigated the relationship between changes in branched-chain amino acids levels in the serum and improvement in liver fat content caused by exercise intervention in individuals with nonalcoholic fatty liver disease. The exploratory study included 208 central obesity and nonalcoholic fatty liver disease individuals from an exercise intervention randomized clinical trial for nonalcoholic fatty liver disease. The participants were randomly assigned to control, moderate, and vigorous-moderate exercise groups for 12 months. Changes in total branched-chain amino acids, leucine, isoleucine, and valine levels from baseline to 6 months were calculated. Liver fat content was determined by proton magnetic resonance spectroscopy. Reductions in circulating levels of total branched-chain amino acids, leucine, and valine levels from baseline to 6 months were significantly associated with the improvement of liver fat content at 6 months and 12 months (p < 0.01 for all) after adjustments for age, sex, total energy intake, protein intake, intervention groups, HOMA-IR, BMI, liver fat content, total branched-chain amino acids, leucine, and valine at baseline, respectively. These associations were still significant after further adjustments for changes in HOMA-IR and BMI from baseline to 6 months (p < 0.05 for all). Our findings indicated that reductions in circulating branched-chain amino acids levels were associated with an improvement in liver fat content by exercise intervention among patients with nonalcoholic fatty liver disease, which was independent of changes in BMI or HOMA-IR.
非酒精性脂肪性肝病（NAFLD）可能与循环支链氨基酸（BCAA）水平升高有关。我们研究了血清 BCAA 水平变化与运动干预对非酒精性脂肪性肝病患者肝脂肪含量改善之间的关系。这项探索性研究纳入了一项针对非酒精性脂肪性肝病的运动干预随机临床试验中的 208 例中心性肥胖和非酒精性脂肪性肝病患者。这些参与者被随机分配到对照组、中等强度运动组和剧烈-中等强度运动组，进行 12 个月的干预。计算了从基线到 6 个月时总 BCAA、亮氨酸、异亮氨酸和缬氨酸水平的变化。通过质子磁共振波谱法测定肝脂肪含量。从基线到 6 个月时，总 BCAA、亮氨酸和缬氨酸水平的降低与 6 个月和 12 个月时肝脂肪含量的改善显著相关（所有 P 值均＜0.01），调整因素包括年龄、性别、总能量摄入、蛋白质摄入、干预组、HOMA-IR、BMI、肝脂肪含量、基线时的总 BCAA、亮氨酸和缬氨酸。在进一步调整从基线到 6 个月时 HOMA-IR 和 BMI 的变化后，这些相关性仍然显著（所有 P 值均＜0.05）。我们的研究结果表明，在非酒精性脂肪性肝病患者中，运动干预降低循环 BCAA 水平与肝脂肪含量的改善有关，这与 BMI 或 HOMA-IR 的变化无关。
