Using Magnetic Resonance to Probe Lipid Synthesis in Response to Ketogenic Diet

Published November 18, 2020

Overall hepatic metabolism is significantly altered by diet.

Non-alcoholic Fatty Liver Disease and its progression to more serious diseases will become the main cause for liver transplant in the next 5 years. Here, researchers used deuterium magnetic resonance to study dietary influences on lipid synthesis demonstrating that high fat ketogenic diets significantly slow de novo lipogenesis, a process by which excess carbohydrates are covered into fatty acids and stored as triacylglycerols.

What did the scientists discover?

MagLab users fed mice low fat diets, high fat diets, and a high fat diet that included "Ketogenic” elements (low in carbohydrates, moderate in proteins). Adding 1% deuterium to drinking water, they were able to use deuterium magnetic resonance to track how lipids are synthesized in response to diet.

The ketogenic addition to a high fat diet significantly slowed new lipid synthesis, but also showed complicated effects on energy balances.

Why is this important?

Non-alcoholic Fatty Liver Disease and its subsequent progress to more serious disease will become the main cause for liver transplantation in the next 5 years. No drugs exist for treatment of non-alcoholic fatty liver disease, as the metabolic trigger for transition to more serious disease is still unknown.

Ketogenic diets are now commonly being suggested as a means of lowering levels of hepatic fatty acids. This research provides important information on the effects of a ketogenic diet on lipid synthesis at the molecular level.

Who did the research?

M.S. Muyyarikkandy¹, M. McLeod², M. Maguire¹, R. Mahar², N. Kattapuram¹, C. Zhang¹, C. Surugihalli¹, V. Muralidan¹, K. Vavilikolanu¹, C.E. Mathews², M.E. Merritt², and N.E. Sunny¹

¹University of Maryland, College Park, MD; ²University of Florida, Gainesville, FL

Why did they need the MagLab?

The MagLab's AMRIS Facility has a CryoProbe and 14.1 T field strength for magnetic resonance has the high sensitivity needed to see these types of metabolic differences.

Details for scientists

View or download the expert-level Science Highlight, Using Magnetic Resonance to Probe Lipid Synthesis in Response to Ketogenic Diet
Read the full-length publication, Branched chain amino acids and carbohydrate restriction exacerbate ketogenesis and hepatic mitochondrial oxidative dysfunction during NAFLD, in FASEB Journal.

Funding

This research was funded by the following grants: G.S. Boebinger (NSF DMR-1644779); N. Sunny and M.E. Merritt (NIH R01DK112865)

For more information, contact Joanna Long.

Tools They Used

This research was conducted in the 14.1T Bruker Bio-Spin equipped with 1.7mm TCI CryoProbe and Avance Neo Console at the MagLab's AMRIS Facility located at the University of Florida.