Related Experiment Video
Updated: Jan 16, 2026
Mouse Model of Metabolic Dysfunction-Associated Steatotic Liver Disease with Fibrosis
Published on: July 18, 2025
Nonfat Milk Supplementation Mitigates Hepatic Lipid Accumulation and Improves Hepatic Lipid Metabolism in an Early
Emily Berg1, Salma Moftah1, Emad Yuzbashian2
1Department of Physiology, Faculty of Medicine and Dentistry, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada.
Background:
Dairy products may mitigate metabolic dysfunction-associated steatotic liver disease (MASLD) progression, but the role of dairy fat is unclear.
Objectives:
This animal trial compared MASLD-related outcomes after feeding nonfat milk (NFM) or whole-fat milk (WFM) in a high-fat diet (HFD)-induced MASLD mouse model.
Methods:
Male C57BL/6N mice were fed a HFD (45% kcal fat; n = 40) for 9 wk. During the last 8 wk, 2 randomly selected groups additionally consumed 0.425 mL NFM (0 g% fat; n = 8) or WFM (3.25 g% fat; n = 12), from a small dish, 5 d/wk. A low-fat diet group (10% kcal fat; n = 20) served as a reference. The metabolic phenotype and liver lipid metabolism pathways were studied and compared by 1-way analysis of variance; P ≤ 0.05 was considered significant.
Results:
NFM reduced body weight (BW) gain (46 ± 2.5 compared with 61 ± 3.5 %BW, P < 0.01) and hepatic triglyceride content (46.0 ± 10.4 compared with 71.7 ± 14.4 mg/g, P <0.05) compared with HFD. Immunoblotting revealed that NFM feeding increased hepatic mitochondrial complex abundance (P < 0.05) compared with WFM. Compared with NFM, WFM had higher triglyceride content (69.2 ± 16.5 compared with 46.0 ± 10.4 mg/g, P < 0.05) but reduced liver area covered by lipid droplets in comparison with HFD (6.49 ± 2.75 compared with 13.61 ± 2.75% standard area, P = 0.051). De novo lipogenesis enzymes, fatty acid synthase (1.33 ± 0.56 compared with 0.76 ± 0.56 AU, P < 0.05) and phosphorylated acetyl-CoA carboxylase (1.65 ± 0.49 compared with 0.02 ± 0.49 AU, P < 0.05) were increased compared with NFM. Carnitine palmitoyl transferase 1α (1.48 ± 0.19 compared with 1.00 ± 0.19 AU, P < 0.05) was increased in WFM compared with HFD animals, and Opa1 mRNA expression was increased in WFM (1.26 ± 0.21 compared with 0.66 ± 0.21 AU, P < 0.05) compared with the NFM group.
Conclusions:
Compared with WFM, NFM mice had greater benefits in mitigating MASLD progression through increased capacity for oxidative phosphorylation and fatty acid export, leading to reduced hepatic fat accumulation.
