Fang Jui, Lai Ming-Wei, Cheng Hao-Tsai, Cristea Anca, Zhou Zhuhuang, Tsui Po-Hsiang
x-Dimension Center for Medical Research and Translation, China Medical University Hospital, Taichung 404332, Taiwan.
Division of Pediatric Gastroenterology, Department of Pediatrics, Liver Research Center, Chang Gung Memorial Hospital at Linkou, Taoyuan 333423, Taiwan.
Pharmaceutics. 2022 Mar 29;14(4):741. doi: 10.3390/pharmaceutics14040741.
Hepatic steatosis causes nonalcoholic fatty liver disease. Whole-body vibration (WBV) has been recommended to allow patients who have difficulty engaging in exercise to improve the grade of hepatic steatosis. This study proposed using ultrasound parametric imaging of the homodyned K (HK) distribution to evaluate the effectiveness of WBV treatments in alleviating hepatic steatosis. Sixty mice were assigned to control (n = 6), sedentary (n = 18), WBV (n = 18), and exercise (swimming) (n = 18) groups. Mice were fed a high-fat diet to induce hepatic steatosis and underwent the intervention for 4, 8, and 16 weeks. Ultrasound scanning was performed in vivo on each mouse after the interventions for ultrasound HK imaging using the parameter μ (the scatterer clustering parameter). Histopathological examinations and the intraperitoneal glucose tolerance test were carried out for comparisons with ultrasound findings. At the 16th week, WBV and exercise groups demonstrated lower body weights, glucose concentrations, histopathological scores (steatosis and steatohepatitis), and μ parameters than the control group (p < 0.05). The steatosis grade was significantly lower in the WBV group (mild) than in the exercise group (moderate) (p < 0.05), corresponding to a reduction in the μ parameter. A further analysis revealed that the correlation between the steatosis grade and the μ parameter was 0.84 (p < 0.05). From this animal study we conclude that WBV may be more effective than exercise in reducing the progression of hepatic steatosis, and ultrasound HK parametric imaging is an appropriate method for evaluating WBV’s effect on hepatic steatosis.
肝脂肪变性会导致非酒精性脂肪性肝病。全身振动（WBV）已被推荐用于帮助难以进行运动的患者改善肝脂肪变性的程度。本研究提出使用同调K（HK）分布的超声参数成像来评估WBV治疗在减轻肝脂肪变性方面的效果。将60只小鼠分为对照组（n = 6）、久坐组（n = 18）、WBV组（n = 18）和运动（游泳）组（n = 18）。给小鼠喂食高脂饮食以诱导肝脂肪变性，并进行4周、8周和16周的干预。干预后，对每只小鼠进行体内超声扫描，使用参数μ（散射体聚集参数）进行超声HK成像。进行组织病理学检查和腹腔内葡萄糖耐量试验，以与超声检查结果进行比较。在第16周时，WBV组和运动组的体重、血糖浓度、组织病理学评分（脂肪变性和脂肪性肝炎）以及μ参数均低于对照组（p < 0.05）。WBV组的脂肪变性程度（轻度）明显低于运动组（中度）（p < 0.05），这与μ参数的降低相对应。进一步分析显示，脂肪变性程度与μ参数之间的相关性为0.84（p < 0.05）。从这项动物研究中我们得出结论，在减少肝脂肪变性进展方面，WBV可能比运动更有效，并且超声HK参数成像是评估WBV对肝脂肪变性影响的合适方法。
