Gut Microbiota as an Emerging Therapeutic Avenue for the Treatment of Nonalcoholic Fatty Liver Disease

Abstract

Non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) is one of the leading causes of death related to liver diseases worldwide. Despite this, there is no specific treatment approved for the disease till now, which could be due to the poor understanding of the pathophysiology of this disease. In the past few decades, several scientists have speculated the root cause of NAFLD to be dysbalance in the gut microbiome resulting in a susceptibility to the inflammatory cascade in the liver. Herein, we hypothesize to fabricate a novel formulation containing prebiotic with probiotics which thereby would help in maintaining the gut homeostasis, and be used for the treatment of NAFLD. The proposed novel formulation would contain a Bifidobacterium sp. with Faecalibacterium prausnitzii in the presence of a dietary fibre having hepatoprotective activity. These two strains of probiotics would help in increasing the concentration of butyrate in the gut which in turn would inhibit intestinal inflammation and maintain gut integrity. The dietary fibre would serve a dual mechanism; firstly, it would act as a prebiotic helping in the proliferation of administered probiotics, and secondly, it would protect the liver via its own hepatoprotective action. This combinatorial approach would pave a new therapeutic avenue for the treatment of NAFLD.