High- and low-protein diet: effects on human hepatic fat content, autophagy, mitochondrial function and fat metabolism

Non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) is becoming increasingly prevalent and nutrition intervention remains the most important therapeutic approach for NAFLD. Our aim was to investigate whether low- (LP) or high-protein (HP) diets are more effective in reducing liver fat and reversing NAFLD. Here RNA-seq analysis was used to analyse which metabolic pathways that were altered on the LP and HP diets. Overall design: 19 morbidly obese subjects undergoing bariatric surgery were randomized into two hypocaloric (1500 kcal/day) diet groups, a low protein (LP: 10 E% protein, n=10) and a high protein (HP: 30 E% protein, n=9), for three weeks prior to surgery. RNA-seq analyses were performed on liver samples collected during surgery.