Starchy foods 'harm the liver'
White bread contain rapidly-digestable carbohydrates
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Friday, 21, Sep 2007 05:11
Diets containing lots of rapidly-digested carbohydrates in food such as white bread, rice, cereals and concentrated sugar could cause a condition that can lead to liver failure and death, scientist have warned.
Researchers from the Boston Children's Hospital found that these diets, known as high-glycemic, could increase the risk of fatty liver.
This disease is increasing in the US as a result of the growing obesity epidemic and the researchers believe their findings suggest it could be preventable and possibly treatable through dietary changes.
They fed mice one of two diets; the first was high-glycemic and the second was low-glycemic, containing vegetables, fruits, beans and unprocessed grains.
Mice on the first diet had a type of cornstarch that is digested quickly while those on the second were given a type that digests slowly.
Both had equal amounts of calories, fat, protein and carbohydrates.
After six months the mice weighed the same but those on the low-glycemic diet were lean, with normal amounts of fat in their bodies while mice on the high-glycemic diet had twice the normal amount of fat in their bodies, blood and livers.
"Our experiment creates a very strong argument that a high-glycemic index diet causes, and a low-glycemic index diet prevents, fatty liver in humans," said lead researcher Dr David Ludwig.
"[Fatty liver disease] is a silent but dangerous epidemic. Just as type two diabetes exploded into our consciousness in the 1990s, so we think fatty liver will in the coming decade."
The results are published in the journal Obesity.