How bacteria may be running a brewery in your patient’s gut
K. pneumoniae could be behind some non-alcoholic fatty liver disease, a small study suggests
Non-alcoholic fatty liver disease may be due to alcohol after all, at least in some patients, if Chinese researchers are proved right.
They think a strain of the bacterium, Klebsiella pneumoniae, effectively runs its own brewery in the gut and may be responsible for the condition in some patients.
Their research began after encountering a patient with the rare condition of autobrewery syndrome who had severe non-alcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH) and ate a high carbohydrate diet.
The man had a blood alcohol level of 400mg/L despite consuming zero alcohol, the authors reported in Cell Metabolism.
