A new study from Spain again confirms that a high fat diet can be harmful and it found high fat diet could cause nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) in mice.

In the study, 30 mice in five groups were subject to one of the five intraperitoneous treatments, saline solution, melatonin (an antioxidant), MnTBAP (a superoxide dismutase analog) or uric acid (a scavenger of peroxynitrite) for 28 weeks. 

High fat diet was found to have a few unfavorable effects on liver tissues and treatment of high fat diet-fed mice with melatonin, MnTBAP or uric acid prevented all negative changes observed in untreated high fat diet -fed mice. 

The study concluded treatment with melatonin, MnTBAP or uric acid might prevent the development of NAFLD in humans.  (David Liu, PHD)

García-Ruiz I, Solís-Muñoz P, Fernández-Moreira D, Grau M, Colina F, Muñoz-Yagüe T, Solís-Herruzo JA.  High-fat diet decreases activity of the oxidative phosphorylation complexes and causes nonalcoholic steatohepatitis in mice.  Dis Model Mech. 2014 Sep 26.