Lowered Serum Triglyceride Levels among Chronic Hepatitis B-Infected Patients in Ghana

Abstract

Dyslipidemia is a common finding in most studies of liver diseases. Little is however known about the effect of the two pathological stages of chronic hepatitis B (CHB) infection -chronicsymptomatic and asymptomatic -on the distribution of serum lipids in CHB infection. We conducted a study on CHB-infected patients attending specialist care at the Gastro-Intestinal (GI) Clinic at the Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital (KATH) during a 7-month period. 64 participants were randomly sampled over the period. On the basis of serological and liver enzyme assays, participants were categorised as chronic asymptomatic, chronic symptomatic and healthy individuals. The relationship between the hosts pathological stage of infection were evaluated with the indices of lipid metabolism -LDL, HDL, triglyceride, and total serum cholesterol using ANOVA. The 64 volunteers recruited in the study were found to consist of 18 patients (28.1%) who were chronic symptomatic, 35 patients (54.7%) who were chronic asymptomatic hepatitis B, and 11 (17.2%) were healthy subjects. Significant overall male dominance was observed among all categories of population enrolled (p=0.0063). Serum triglyceride levels decreased more among the CHB-infected population compared to the healthy individuals (p=0.0010) with value lowest among the chronic symptomatic population. Basal serum cholesterol, HDL, and LDL were unaffected by the disease. This work reveals that serum triglyceride is significantly lowered in CHB infection and that the extent of this decrease in host is independent of the pathological stage of the infection.

Characteristics of Chronic Hepatitis B Virus Patients Related Liver Cirrhosis in a Tertiary Care Referral Hospital, Duhok, Iraqi Kurdistan

“…This figure has e.g. been reported by Kwarteng et al who found serum triglyceride concentration with the lowest level among the chronic symptomatic HBV population, while serum cholesterol levels were unaffected markedly [21]. It is well described that following HBV infection, the secretion of triglycerides by the liver decreases, which subsequently results in steatotic liver condition [22].…”

Serum lipids as an indicator for the alteration of liver function in patients with hepatitis B

“…The circulating level of those metabolites in plasma depends upon the functional capability of liver cells and tissues. Chronic HBV infection is directly affecting the functional capability of liver cells [ 5 ]. Mild to severe liver disrupting reasons such as chronic HBV infection could probably affect directly or indirectly on the levels of these lipid substrates in the plasma [ 6 ].…”

Metabolic characterization of the natural progression of chronic hepatitis B

“…Several metabolomics studies have been done to assess the metabolic host–pathogen interactions during chronic HBV infection. Targeted metabolomics approaches have identified the phospholipid [ 15 , 16 ], triglyceride [ 15 , 17 , 18 ], sphingomyelin [ 15 , 19 ], and free fatty acid [ 16 , 20 ] metabolic pathways as affected during chronic HBV infection. Untargeted approaches have also been used to investigate metabolic changes experienced during chronic HBV infection [ 21 – 23 ] and have primarily focused on HBV-related cirrhosis and HCC [ 15 , 24 – 26 ].…”