Study may help prevent liver disease

DALLAS, Oct 11, 2005 (UPI via COMTEX) -- Dallas scientists have found the small intestine communicates with the liver to control bile acid -- a finding that may help treat liver disease.

The researchers at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical School say their finding might help prevent liver damage that occurs in biliary cirrhosis, viral hepatitis, alcoholic liver disease and pregnancy.

The liver makes bile acids that help digest fatty foods and fat-soluble vitamins in the small intestine.

The acids are sent to the gall bladder, where they're stored until food is digested, the scientists explained. That stimulates the gall bladder into releasing the bile acids into the small intestine, where they do their work before being re absorbed into the bloodstream and returned to the liver.

Scientists have known about a mechanism within the liver that prevents too much bile acid from being produced. But in the recent study, researchers looked at a protein in mice called fibroblast growth factor 15 and found it was made in the small intestine, not in the liver. That, they said, suggests a new role for the small intestine in regulating bile acid levels.

The study appears in the October issue of Cell Metabolism.

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