A high-fat diet is not enough to cause short-term fatty liver disease. However, if this diet is combined with the intake of beverages sweetened with liquid fructose, the accumulation of fats in the liver accelerates and hypertriglyceridemia — a cardiovascular risk factor — can appear, according to researchers.

This is explained in a study on a mouse experimental model, published in the journal Molecular Nutrition and Food Research and led by Professor Juan Carlos Laguna, from the Faculty of Pharmacy and Food Sciences, the Institute of Biomedicine of the University of Barcelona (IBUB) and the Physiopathology of Obesity and Nutrition Networking Biomedical Research Centre (CIBEROBN).

The study counts on the collaboration of the researchers Aleix Sala-Vila and Iolanda Lazaro, from the Hospital del Mar Medical Research Institute (IMIM), and Jose Rodriguez-Morato, from IMIM-Hospital del Mar and MELIS-Pompeu Fabra University, among other experts.

Fructose and lipid metabolism

Fructose is one of the most common sweeteners in the food industry. This simple sugar (monosaccharide) is industrially obtained from corn syrup, a product derived from this gramineae. With a great sweetener power and low production costs, fructose is used by the food industry to sweeten beverages, sauces and processed foods, despite the scientific evidence that associates it with metabolic diseases which are risk factors of cardiovascular pathologies.

According to the new study, the effect caused by fructose in the increase in the synthesis of fatty acids in the liver is more decisive than the external introduction of fats through the diet. «In high-fat diets which are supplemented with liquid fructose, this monosaccharide is able to induce an increase in the de novo lipogenesis — that is, the formation of fats through sugar — and an inhibition of the lipid oxidation in the liver,» says Professor Juan Carlos Laguna, from the Department of Pharmacology, Toxicology and Therapeutical Chemistry.

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