Efficacy and mechanism of intermittent fasting in metabolic associated fatty liver disease based on ultraperformance liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry.

OBJECTIVES

Drug treatment of metabolic associated fatty liver disease (MAFLD) remains lacking. This study analyzes the efficacy and mechanism underlying intermittent fasting combined with lipidomics.

METHODS

Thirty-two male rats were randomly divided into three groups: Normal group, administered a standard diet; MAFLD group, administered a 60% high-fat diet; time-restricted feeding (TRF) group, administered a 60% high-fat diet. Eating was allowed for 6 h per day (16:00-22:00). After 15 weeks, liver lipidomics and other indicators were compared.

RESULTS

A total of 1,062 metabolites were detected. Compared with the Normal group, the weight, body fat ratio, aspartate aminotransferase, total cholesterol, low-density cholesterol, fasting blood glucose, uric acid, and levels of 317 lipids including triglycerides (TG) (17:018:120:4) were upregulated, whereas the levels of 265 lipids including phosphatidyl ethanolamine (PE) (17:020:5) were downregulated in the MAFLD group ( < 0.05). Compared with the MAFLD group, the weight, body fat ratio, daily food intake, and levels of 253 lipids including TG (17:018:122:5) were lower in the TRF group. Furthermore, the levels of 82 lipids including phosphatidylcholine (PC) (20:422:6) were upregulated in the TRF group ( < 0.05), while serum TG level was increased; however, the increase was not significant ( > 0.05). Enrichment analysis of differential metabolites showed that the pathways associated with the observed changes mainly included metabolic pathways, regulation of lipolysis in adipocytes, and fat digestion and absorption, while reverse-transcription polymerase chain reaction showed that TRF improved the abnormal expression of and α genes in the MAFLD group ( < 0.05).

CONCLUSION

Our results suggest that 6 h of TRF can improve MAFLD reducing food intake by 13% and improving the expression of genes in the PPARα/FAS pathway, thereby providing insights into the prevention and treatment of MAFLD.