Efficacy of glutathione for the treatment of nonalcoholic fatty liver disease: an open-label, single-arm, multicenter, pilot study

What Was Tested

This clinical trial paper looks at Glutathione in the context of fatty liver & elevated liver enzymes.

Glutathione plays crucial roles in the detoxification and antioxidant systems of cells and has been used to treat acute poisoning and chronic liver diseases by intravenous injection.

This is a first study examining the therapeutic effects of oral administration of glutathione in patients with nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD).

Who Took Part

PubMed indexes the participants as middle-aged adults and older adults, both men and women.

Thirty-four NAFLD patients diagnosed using ultrasonography were prospectively evaluated.

The researchers evaluated their clinical parameters before and after glutathione treatment.

How the Study Was Run

The researchers set it up as a open-label, multicenter and pilot study.

Everyone knew when Glutathione was being given (open label), which is simpler to run but leaves more room for expectations to affect what is reported.

Running at several centres spread the Glutathione study over different clinics and patient groups.

It is described as a pilot, a small early test of whether a larger Glutathione study would be practical.

The study was an open label, single arm, multicenter, pilot trial.

The researchers also quantified liver fat and fibrosis using vibration-controlled transient elastography.

The primary outcome of the study was the change in alanine aminotransferase (ALT) levels.

What Was Measured

The subject headings attached to it are Age Factors, Alanine Transaminase, Elasticity Imaging Techniques, Fatty Acids, Nonesterified, Ferritins, Glutathione and Liver.

Author keywords: Controlled attenuation parameter and Nonalcoholic fatty liver disease.

What This Means in Plain Language

The paper is an open-label, multicenter and pilot study of Glutathione in people with fatty liver & elevated liver enzymes.

Its findings take up roughly 7 sentences of the abstract and are left out here on purpose; the source paper is the place to read them.

The publication is from 2017 (BMC gastroenterology), a journal based in England.

More context: the Glutathione compound page, Fatty liver & elevated liver enzymes research.