Exercise rewires liver metabolism differently based on sex
New research suggests the liver benefits of exercise may not look the same in males and females.
Exercise benefits nearly every part of the body, including the liver and metabolism, but its effects may vary between males and females. Researchers discovered that endurance exercise altered how liver cells create energy, a process called the Krebs cycle, which occurs inside mitochondria within individual cells. Female rats exhibited an increase in proteins related to the energy cycle, while male rats showed modifications to existing proteins.
Lead author Scott Rector explained that these are subtle changes in the cellular energy process, with neither sex necessarily having a "better" modification. The study found that exercise training improved liver health in both sexes, reducing liver fat, improving cholesterol use and disposal, and decreasing fibrosis, a buildup of scar tissue often associated with liver injury or disease.
Males appeared to expel more cholesterol than females. The researchers plan to investigate how these changes in the cell energy cycle might affect metabolism to develop more personalized interventions for metabolic dysfunction-associated steatotic liver disease, a prevalent chronic liver disease associated with obesity. The research was published in Cell Reports, with additional coauthors from NextGen Precision Health and the University of Kansas Medical Center.
Rector's lab is part of the NIH-funded Molecular Transducers of Physical Activity Consortium (MoTrPAC), focusing on mapping the molecular effects of exercise across tissues.
Written by urgent.news from Futurity's reporting — not their text. Machine-written — may contain errors; check the original before relying on it.
