Metabolic profiling analysis reveals the potential contribution of barley sprouts against oxidative stress and related liver cell damage in habitual alcohol drinkers

Hyerin Park, Eunok Lee, Yunsoo Kim, Hye Yoon Jung, Kwang Min Kim, Oran Kwon

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

6 Scopus citations

Abstract

Chronic excessive alcohol consumption is associated with multiple liver defects, such as steatosis and cirrhosis, mainly attributable to excessive reactive oxygen species (ROS) production. Barley sprouts (Hordeum vulgare L.) contain high levels of polyphenols that may serve as potential antioxidants. This study aimed to investigate whether barley sprouts extract powder (BSE) relieves alcohol‐induced oxidative stress and related hepatic damages in habitual alcohol drinkers with fatty liver. In a 12‐week randomized controlled trial with two arms (placebo or 480 mg/day BSE; n = 76), we measured clinical markers and metabolites at the baseline and endpoint to understand the complex molecular mechanisms. BSE supplementation reduced the magnitude of ROS generation and lipid peroxidation and improved the glutathione antioxidant system. Subsequent metabolomic analysis identified alterations in glutathione metabolism, amino acid metabolism, and fatty acid synthesis pathways, confirming the role of BSE in glutathione‐related lipid metabolism. Finally, the unsupervised machine learning algorithm indicated that subjects with lower glutathione reductase at the baseline were responders for liver fat content, and those with higher fatigue and lipid oxidation were responders for γ‐glutamyl transferase. These findings suggest that BSE administration may protect against hepatic injury by reducing oxidative stress and changing the metabolism in habitual alcohol drinkers with fatty liver.

Original languageEnglish
Article number459
Pages (from-to)1-14
Number of pages14
JournalAntioxidants
Volume10
Issue number3
DOIs
StatePublished - Mar 2021

Bibliographical note

Funding Information:
Funding: This research was supported by the Bio‐Synergy Research Project, grant number NRF‐ 2012M3A9C4048761 funded by the Government of South Korea (Ministry of Science, ICT, and Fu‐ ture Planning).

Publisher Copyright:
© 2021 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland.

Keywords

  • Alcoholic fatty liver
  • Barley sprout
  • Oxidative stress

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