Research conducted by a local hospital has found that hepatitis B patients with a simple fatty liver have a lower mortality risk than those without, suggesting that excessive fat in the liver could play a protective role against hepatitis B by potentially inhibiting viral replication.
“Hepatitis B affects more than 300 million people worldwide and is a leading cause of liver cirrhosis and liver cancer,” National Taiwan University Hospital (NTUH) Department of Internal Medicine clinical assistant professor Su Tung-Hung (蘇東弘) said at a news conference at NTUH on Wednesday.
Su added that an estimated 2 million people in Taiwan are carriers of chronic hepatitis B, a viral liver disease which can be transmitted through blood, bodily fluids or from mother to child.
Photo: CNA
While acute hepatitis B has no specific treatment and chronic hepatitis B can be managed with oral antiviral medications, there is still no highly effective treatment for hepatitis B in general, NTUH Bei-Hu Branch’s Department of Gastroenterology and Hepatology attending physician Huang Shang-chin (黃上秦) said.
Su said many chronic hepatitis B carriers in Taiwan also have metabolic dysfunction, including diabetes, hypertension, obesity and fatty liver disease, due to dietary habits and lifestyles becoming increasingly Westernized in recent years.
As the long-term impact of metabolic dysfunction and fatty liver disease on people with chronic hepatitis B has not yet been fully understood, the NTUH hepatitis research team conducted a study using long-term monitoring data collected by the hospital from 2006 to 2021 and analyzed more than 10,000 hepatitis B patients, he said.
The study, published in Journal of Hepatology in December last year, found that chronic hepatitis B patients with metabolic dysfunction had a significantly higher all-cause mortality rate, with the risk increasing as the number of metabolic disorders increased, Su said.
People with three or more metabolic dysfunctions face more than double the all-cause mortality risk compared with those without any metabolic dysfunctions, he added.
Among metabolic dysfunctions, diabetes poses the greatest threat to hepatitis B patients. Those who have HbA1c (glycated hemoglobin) levels that exceed 8 percent have a liver disease-related mortality risk four times higher than those with levels below 6 percent, Su said.
An unexpected finding in the study was that hepatitis B patients who only had simple fatty liver disease had about 50 percent lower all-cause mortality risk compared with hepatitis B patients who had neither fatty liver disease nor cardiometabolic-related issues, he said.
“Those [excessive] fats may have an inhibitory effect on the replication of the hepatitis B virus,” Su added.
Asked whether deliberately inducing simple fatty liver in patients could be a potential strategy to combat hepatitis B, Huang said that it is not easy to do, as most cases of fatty liver are accompanied by a metabolic syndrome.
“It is impossible for us to clinically control for a condition where a patient develops simple fatty liver without metabolic dysfunctions,” he added.
However, with further experiments and research on why simple fatty liver can suppress or even clear the hepatitis B virus, researchers might be able to identify the underlying mechanisms, Huang said.
“If we can pinpoint those mechanisms, there is potential to develop targeted medicines based on them,” he added.
Taiwan would benefit from more integrated military strategies and deployments if the US and its allies treat the East China Sea, the Taiwan Strait and the South China Sea as a “single theater of operations,” a Taiwanese military expert said yesterday. Shen Ming-shih (沈明室), a researcher at the Institute for National Defense and Security Research, said he made the assessment after two Japanese military experts warned of emerging threats from China based on a drill conducted this month by the Chinese People’s Liberation Army’s (PLA) Eastern Theater Command. Japan Institute for National Fundamentals researcher Maki Nakagawa said the drill differed from the
‘WORSE THAN COMMUNISTS’: President William Lai has cracked down on his political enemies and has attempted to exterminate all opposition forces, the chairman said The legislature would motion for a presidential recall after May 20, Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairman Eric Chu (朱立倫) said yesterday at a protest themed “against green communists and dictatorship” in Taipei. Taiwan is supposed to be a peaceful homeland where people are united, but President William Lai (賴清德) has been polarizing and tearing apart society since his inauguration, Chu said. Lai must show his commitment to his job, otherwise a referendum could be initiated to recall him, he said. Democracy means the rule of the people, not the rule of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), but Lai has failed to fulfill his
A fugitive in a suspected cosmetic surgery fraud case today returned to Taiwan from Canada, after being wanted for six years. Internet celebrity Su Chen-tuan (蘇陳端), known as Lady Nai Nai (貴婦奈奈), and her former boyfriend, plastic surgeon Paul Huang (黃博健), allegedly defrauded clients and friends of about NT$1 billion (US$30.66 million). Su was put on a wanted list in 2019 when she lived in Toronto, Canada, after failing to respond to subpoenas and arrest warrants from the Taipei District Prosecutors’ Office. Su arrived at Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport at 5am today on an EVA Air flight accompanied by a
A rally held by opposition parties yesterday demonstrates that Taiwan is a democratic country, President William Lai (賴清德) said yesterday, adding that if opposition parties really want to fight dictatorship, they should fight it on Tiananmen Square in Beijing. The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) held a protest with the theme “against green communists and dictatorship,” and was joined by the Taiwan People’s Party. Lai said the opposition parties are against what they called the “green communists,” but do not fight against the “Chinese communists,” adding that if they really want to fight dictatorship, they should go to the right place and face
RSS