A comparative study of serum lipid contents in pre and post IFN-alpha treated acute hepatitis C patients

To study the effect of Interferon (INF) alpha-2b therapy on the serum lipids and fatty acid (FA) level in pre and post treated hepatitis C (HCV) patients.

Fifty samples were collected from pre and post treated patients along with age and gender matched controls. After separating serum, lipid contents were analyzed by microlab and gas chromatography.

The hepatitis C infection results in hypolipidemia with reduced level of triglyceride (113 mg/dl), high density lipoprotein (37.1 mg/dl), low density lipoprotein (74.3 mg/dl), cholesterol (149.9 mg/dl) that increase the infection resolution and after the IFN treatment, the lipid profile of the patients were increased. The myristic (2.8 g/100 g) and palmitic acids (26.6 g/100 g) were significantly higher while linoleic acid (20.94 g/100 g) was significantly lower in HCV patients. The higher oleic: stearic (1.4) and palmitoleic: palmitic acid (0.2) ratios were detected in HCV patients, showing enhanced stearoyl-CoA desaturase activity. The levels of serum saturated (44.9 g/100 g) and monounsaturated FA's (26.98 g/100 g) were higher while polyunsaturated FA's (25.9 g/100 g) were found lower in HCV patients in comparison of controls (40.1; 25.01; 33.44 g/100 g respectively). An inverse correlation was found HCV RNA viral load and PUFA (R(2) = 0.4555). Elevated levels of serum saturated free FA (45.7 g/100 g) in HCV patients indicates stimulated lipoapoptosis.

The present study conclude that serum PUFA level was lower in HCV patients, hence PUFA may provide synergistic antiviral effects when given as a food supplement during the INF based anti- HCV therapy.