Effect of Citicoline on liver fat content in mice fed a high-fat diet, an experimental study

Abstract

Citicoline may have a beneficial role in the protection of hepatocytes because of its role in reducing oxidative stress and its choline part role in the production of VLDL. Choline deficiency leads to liver fat accumulation, which is treated by supplying choline. The purpose of this study was to investigate the hypothesis, of whether the administration of citicoline, the precursor of choline, in mice on a high-fat diet is effective in reducing the amounts of liver fat content. Twenty-four male C57BL/6 mice, after 2 weeks on a high-fat (HF) diet, were randomly assigned to the 4 groups. Control: HF diet mice without intervention, dose 1: HF diet mice with a dose of 10 mg/kg Citicoline, dose 2: HF diet mice with an amount of 20 mg/kg citicoline, and dose 3: HF diet mice with an amount of 30 mg/kg Citicoline. After 8 weeks, the mice’s body weights, liver weights, liver dry weights, and liver fat percentages were measured. All the aspects of ARRIVE and PREPARE guidelines were considered. The differences in liver fat % between the control, dose 1, and dose 2 groups were not statistically meaningful (8.37 ± 0.39, 8.08 ± 0.65, 7.63 ± 0.55, and 7.34 ± 0.65 % for control, dose 1, dose 2, and dose 3 groups respectively; p for ANOVA test: 0.0381). A posthoc Tukey test showed that liver fat % was statistically different only between the control and dose 3 groups (mean diff: 1.03, 95%CI: 0.05 to 2.0). The liver total weight and liver dry weight were not different between the groups (p= 0.94, and p= 0.66 respectively). The intervention did not affect the mice's body weights. It seems that citicoline can be considered as a dietary supplement in the treatment of fatty liver. RCT studies are suggested to test this hypothesis.