NCT05216796

Healthy Liver - Healthy Brain

Diet Intervention to Promote Liver and Brain Health in Adults With Non-alcoholic Fatty Liver Disease

• Status: Completed
• Phase: N/A
• Study type: Interventional
• Enrollment: 55 (actual)
• Sponsor: University of Texas at Austin · Academic / Other
• Sex: All
• Age: 40 Years
• Healthy volunteers: Accepted

Summary

People with liver disease report difficulties with attention and problem-solving skills. Diet plays an important role in the development of liver disease and/or pre-diabetes. The purpose of this study is to examine whether participation in a brief diet intervention (up to 3 weeks) can improve brain and liver health and function.

Detailed description

The importance of liver function for brain and cognitive health is undeniable. Specifically, adults with chronic liver diseases such as non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD), a factor of metabolic syndrome (MetS), experience a range of symptoms including problems with attention, problem solving skills and executive function. Importantly, diet plays a role in the development of NAFLD. The investigators propose to be the first to demonstrate that Metabolic syndrome-related brain vulnerability, in the form of elevated free cerebral glutamate, is related to hepatic triglyceride level, through experimental manipulation of liver fat and multiorgan imaging. The investigators seek to improve liver health by altering diet content in a block randomized feeding trial. The investigators selected a low-carbohydrate (\<30 g/d) diet (LoCHO) to reduce liver fat and a low-calorie (LoCAL) diet as a control for weight loss. The investigators hypothesize that LoCHO diet will improve cognitive performance by improving liver health and thus, brain health. This work may provide a way to support brain function in MetS and delay cognitive decline.

Conditions

• Metabolic Syndrome
• Non-Alcoholic Fatty Liver Disease
• NAFLD
• Pre-diabetes

Interventions

Type	Name	Description
BEHAVIORAL	Diet Intervention	Meal will be prepared and delivered by SNAP Kitchen, which has 7 locations in Austin and offers 20+ options for low-carbohydrate and low-calorie meals, each meal available in different sizes varying in energy intake. Meals will be entered into the Nutrition Data System for Research (NDS-R) software to confirm low-calorie profile. Meals will be delivered to participants' homes twice a week.

Timeline

• Start date: 2022-05-18
• Primary completion: 2024-08-03
• Completion: 2024-09-01
• First posted: 2022-02-01
• Last updated: 2024-11-21

Locations

1 site across 1 country: United States