The role of S-adenosyl-L-methionine in liver health

 

 

S-adenosyl-L-methionine (SAMe) is a pleiotropic molecule involved in multiple cellular responses. It is involved in the formation, activation, or breakdown of other chemicals in the body, including hormones, proteins, phospholipids, and certain drugs.

 

This molecule participates in the following three types of reactions:

 

1. Methylation: It contributes methyl to activate molecules.
2. Synthesis of cysteine, glutathione and other sulfurous compounds.
3. Synthesis of polyamines: Cell growth, gene expression, neuronal rejuvenation, etc.

 

SAMe has been shown to be the major methyl donor in methyltransferase reactions. Supplementation with SAMe can restore Glutathione’s concentrations in the liver but also improve hepatic damage.

 

SAMe is also involved in many biochemical reactions in the human body, serving as a major metabolite regulating the growth, death and differentiation of hepatocytes.

 

However, SAMe biosynthesis is suppressed in patients with chronic liver disease. Pre-clinical studies indicate that this suppression may exacerbate liver damage. Therefore, supplementation can be a useful treatment.

 

In models, the relationship between exhaustion of intrahepatic SAMe and hepatic fibrosis was confirmed. In vitro experiments have shown that SAMe increases the antiviral effect of interferon. Therefore, SAMe is considered to be a number of internal interferon sensitizer.

 

SAMe could also be used as a safe and effective medicine to reduce jaundice, especially for chronic hepatitis B patients.

 

Indeed, in recent years, an increasing number of patients with chronic liver disease have been treated with SAMe in different countries.

 

Although it is a relatively new method in the treatment of liver disease, a large number of clinical trials focusing on SAMe

 

 

SAMe, the amazing "big nutrient", can normalize liver function.

 

How? SAMe is a central vector in liver biochemistry.

 

It does two crucial things: It turns into the most vital antioxidant substance for the liver, glutathione.

 

The liver contains the third highest amount of SAMe in the body, after the adrenal glands and the cone. It is necessary for liver function and therefore can be considered as a basic nutrient for this important organ.

 

In addition to its many other functions, SAMe plays a leading role in liver regeneration.

 

The liver has specific enzymes it uses to regenerate tissues, which are dependent on SAMe. The liver has the hardest work, since it is called to break down any chemist who meets the body, including drugs. Daily, it filters the blood, chases the bacteria, makes the bile and creates various other substances, such as lipoproteins.

 

SAMe is a biochemical reaction product between ATP and methionine. Half of all of the methionine in the body is used in the liver to make SAMe. SAMe has been compared to ATP in its importance for the organization. It is used in many different cellular processes, from replication to biochemical reactions, responsible for the formation of melatonin and phosphatidylcholine.

 

 

Glutathione & SAMe

 

SAMe is particularly important for the liver because it is composed of glutathione. Glutathione is vital for liver function. A significant portion of SAMe is converted to glutathione in the liver.

 

Glutathione is the natural antioxidant of the liver.

 

A healthy liver has the ability to store vitamins, produce cholesterol, filter bacteria from blood, synthesize fibrinogen and prothrombin, break down toxic biochemicals, synthesize proteins and bile and make glycogen from glucose.

 

Hepatic health is extremely important because everything that happens in the liver directly affects many different mechanisms of the body.

 

A person with a diseased liver is a person who has a problem. Liver cirrhosis begins with fatty infiltration and then evolves into a body full of nodules and connective tissue fibrosis. There is also tissue degeneration and regeneration.

 

Alcoholism or the hepatitis virus usually causes liver cirrhosis, without that being the only situations that can cause a problem. For example, one of the biochemical effects of cirrhosis is the reduction of glutathione.

 

Glutathione is a very important antioxidant for the liver.

 

The liver contains too much fat and mitochondria, which produce free radicals. Without sufficient glutathione to extinguish them, the free radicals will harm it. Many liver diseases are actually lesions from free radicals, lipid peroxidation and oxidative stress.

 

Alcohol is broken down into a product called acetaldehyde, a notorious free radical producer. Glutathione and cysteine ​​both bind to acetaldehyde to neutralize it.

 

In chronic alcoholism, there is so much damage from free radicals that the antioxidant system can "clean" little.

 

The results are massive damage to the organ responsible for controlling any foreign substance entering the body.

 

 

Cysteine

 

Cysteine ​​is synthesized along the biochemical pathway of SAMe before glutathione is made. This means that cysteine ​​eventually becomes glutathione. The by-product of SAMe, homocysteine, is the cysteine ​​precursor.

 

Study on models showed that maintaining SAMe levels protects the liver.

 

 

How does SAMe work?

 

It works by increasing or maintaining glutathione levels. The ability of SAMe to be absorbed by human liver cells and converted to glutathione was confirmed by researchers in Spain in 1991.

 

They report in Toxicology that the SAMe supplement keeps the glutathione levels added at the same time as alcohol (which drastically reduces glutathione).

 

Although there are hundreds of studies on the protective effects of SAMe on the liver, human studies are rare.

 

There are two main reasons for this: Liver biopsies are not popular and SAMe has not been patented.

 

However, several studies in humans conducted outside the US show that rodent studies with SAMe are also preserved in humans.

 

Some of these were reported in a study entitled "Recent Expectations in Liver Healing", published in 1990.

 

In a placebo-controlled study in the Scandinavian Journal of Gastroenterology, patients with liver disease (alcoholic and non-alcoholic) received 1,200 mg SAMe orally per day for six months. Liver biopsies showed a significant increase in glutathione and a significant reduction in oxidized glutathione. In non-alcoholic subjects who had liver damage, alanine aminotransferase (a liver enzyme indicating damage) was reduced.

 

In a study in which patients with alcoholic liver disease received intravenous SAMe for 15 days, liver function improved significantly.

 

In addition to its ability to maintain the functioning of the antioxidant of the liver, SAMe works in other important ways.

 

The liver is the central concentration point for lipid molecules surrounding the body (lipoproteins). It is the place where very low density lipoproteins (VLDL) and cholesterol are synthesized.

 

Cholesterol is the precursor to important steroid hormones such as estrogen, DHEA, androgens and glucocorticoids. It is also part of the bile, which acts as a natural detergent against dietary fat.

 

Cirrhosis of the liver causes fatty infiltration, in which lipid concentrations accumulate in the liver. SAMe can prevent and cure this situation. The rats were the first to show lipid-lowering benefits with SAMe.

 

In a study involving people with fatty liver, hepatitis and cirrhosis, 150 mg of SAMe, I.V., they completely eliminated fat in some patients and decreased significantly in all of them within 15 days.

 

Not only does SAMe prevent the accumulation of fat in the liver, it prevents the increase of lipids associated with cirrhosis outside the liver. Blood cells in cirrhotic patients have a high cholesterol to phospholipid ratio. This causes problems with how cells work.

 

Kidney problems, bleeding and anemia in patients with cirrhosis can be identified as cell membrane problems. How well cells work depends on how well their membrane works.

 

A team in England has shown that SAMe dramatically reduces cholesterol. The cholesterol to phospholipid ratio was substantially reduced in the erythrocytes of subjects with liver disease two weeks after oral SAMe (1,600 mg).