How carbs from food end up as fat
The same gene that helps convert a big plate of holiday cookies into fat could also provide a new target for potential treatments for fatty liver disease, diabetes, and obesity.
Researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, found that mice that have had the gene disabled did not convert carbohydrates to fat, despite eating a high-carb diet.
More than three-quarters of obese people and one-third of Americans have fatty liver, or steatosis, according to epidemiological studies. A diet excessively high in bread, pasta, rice, soda, and other carbohydrates is a major risk factor for fatty liver, which is marked by the abnormal accumulation of fat within a liver cell.
Full story at Futurity.
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