Rome, Dec. 16. (Adnkronos Health) – A low level of HDL cholesterol, the so-called good cholesterol, is associated with a higher chance of developing hepatocellular carcinoma and seems to be able to predict liver cancer 5 years before diagnosis. This is what emerges from a study by the Aldo Moro University of Bari, supported by the Airc Cancer Research Foundation, published today in the ‘Journal of Hepatology Reports’. Until a few years ago – recalls an Airc note – most liver cancer diseases were associated with hepatitis B and C infections.Today, however, it is known that the most frequent liver cancer in people between 55 and 75 years is hepatocarcinoma that develops in subjects without infection, apparently healthy, who do not feel any symptoms, but who at the level of the liver already have a pathological condition of steatosis, ie an accumulation of fat that can lead to subsequent fibrosis.
Hepatocarcinoma is considered by the European Association for the Study of Liver Disease to be a ‘metabolic’ cancer. In dysmetabolic subjects, in fact, the excessive accumulation of fat in the liver causes inflammation of the cells, causing a real fat hepatitis and consequently a liver fibrosis. This condition is a very fertile ground for the development of hepatocarcinoma. As part of the studies on metabolism and liver cancer, the research group coordinated by Antonio Moschetta of the University of Bari has shown that in patients with liver fibrosis a low level of HDL cholesterol is associated with a greater probability of developing hepatocarcinoma and seems to be able to predict the disease already 5 years before diagnosis.In the study, the researchers analyzed the clinical, ultrasound and hematochemical parameters of over 1,000 suspected patients with metabolic problems, followed at the ‘C. Frugoni’ University Medical Clinic, directed by Carlo Sabbà, of the Policlinico University Hospital of Bari.
“Individuals who developed hepatocellular carcinoma in the next 5 years, at the first assessment at time 0, showed lower levels of HDL cholesterol, with the same liver fibrosis,” says Moschetta. “In addition, selecting the patients who then developed cancer among those who 5 years earlier had low HDL cholesterol, we observed that the latter, with the same low HDL cholesterol and liver fibrosis, showed a significant increase in waistline, which is a measure of fat deposits at the level of visceral adipose tissue and a sign of inflammation of the organism”.
By regularizing the patient’s metabolism – underlines the note – it is possible to reverse fibrosis. Thus, the discovery that a single blood biomarker can predict the diagnosis of hepatocellular carcinoma well in advance could allow us to identify those at risk, even before they develop specific symptoms.In other words, it may be possible to prevent this type of cancer through nutritional and/or pharmacological modifications.
The article, whose first author is Lucilla Crudele, confirms the group’s previous findings on the role of cholesterol metabolism in carcinogenesis processes. In addition, the importance of nutrition and healthy behaviors and habits is once again demonstrated as essential ways to increase HDL levels in stopping the development of cancer and taking away its energy to grow.
“Today we know – concludes the researcher – that a subject who has fatty liver and low HDL cholesterol associated with an increased waistline has an increased risk of developing hepatocellular carcinoma within the next five years. This information allows us to follow these patients, indeed, obliges us to do so with punctual and repeated ultrasounds, and to give them indications to modify their lifestyle in order to return to an optimal condition to protect themselves and reduce the risk of developing cancer”.
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Source – https://www.univadis.it/viewarticle/tumori-colesterolo-buono-basso-in-pazienti-con-fegato-grasso-predice-cancro