Bay Biosciences provides matched serum (sera) and plasma, biofluid samples from unique metabolic dysfunction-associated steatohepatitis (MASLD) patients for research.

A diagram of liver and cirrhosis AI-generated content may be incorrect.

What is MASLD?

Metabolic dysfunction-associated steatotic liver disease (MASLD), for instance, used to be called nonalcoholic fatty liver disease. MASLD, in particular, builds up fat in your liver because of extra body weight, high blood sugar, high cholesterol, or high blood pressure. Moreover, if the liver has both fat buildup and inflammation, it’s called metabolic dysfunction-associated steatohepatitis (MASH).

In fact, metabolic dysfunction-associated steatotic liver disease (MASLD) is a condition where, specifically, people with diabetes, obesity, high blood pressure, or high cholesterol, and who drink little to no alcohol, experience a buildup of fat in the liver.

Furthermore, up to 30 out of 100 people, or over 100 million American adults, have MASLD. In addition, researchers think that obesity is the most common cause of fatty infiltration of the liver. Moreover, some experts estimate that about two thirds of obese adults and half of obese children may have fatty liver.

Consequently, about 2 to 5 percent of adult Americans and up to 20 percent of those who are obese may suffer from the more severe condition metabolic dysfunction-associated steatohepatitis (MASH – the advanced stage of MASLD). However, the number of children who have MASH is not known.

Causes of MASLD

Interestingly, healthcare providers don’t know the exact cause of metabolic dysfunction-associated steatotic liver disease. However, certain health conditions closely link to MASLD. Specifically, these include obesity, insulin resistance, metabolic syndrome, type 2 diabetes, high cholesterol, and high triglycerides. Consequently, these conditions may lead to extra fat in the liver or MASLD.

MASLD is part of the metabolic syndrome, characterized by diabetes, or pre-diabetes (insulin resistance). Furthermore, it includes being overweight or obese, elevated blood lipids such as cholesterol and triglycerides, as well as high blood pressure.

However, not all patients exhibit all the manifestations of metabolic syndrome. Moreover, less is known about what causes MASH to develop. Consequently, researchers focus on several factors that may contribute to the development of MASH.

These factors include:

  • Firstly, oxidative stress (an imbalance between pro-oxidant and antioxidant chemicals that leads to liver cell damage).
  • Secondly, the production and release of toxic inflammatory proteins (cytokines) by the patient’s own inflammatory cells, liver cells, or fat cells.
  • Additionally, liver cell necrosis or death, known as apoptosis.
  • Furthermore, adipose tissue (fat tissue) inflammation and infiltration by white blood cells.
  • Lastly, gut microbiota (intestinal bacteria), which may play a role in liver inflammation.

Risk Factors

Notably, children and young adults can get this disease. Nevertheless, it is most common in middle age. Risk factors include:

  • First, having excess weight, especially having too much belly fat
  • Second, having high blood fat levels (either triglycerides or LDL cholesterol)
  • Moreover, having type 2 diabetes or prediabetes
  • Finally, having high blood pressure

When these risk factors happen together, for this reason, they cause a health problem called metabolic syndrome. Furthermore, people with metabolic syndrome often have fatty liver. In addition, they also are more likely to have heart disease. Other conditions that may raise your risk include, for example, polycystic ovary syndrome, sleep apnea, and hypothyroidism.

Symptoms

MASLD is sometimes called a silent liver disease. This is because it can happen without causing any symptoms. In fact, most people with MASLD live with fat in their liver without getting liver damage. However, a few people who have fat in their liver develop metabolic dysfunction-associated steatohepatitis (MASH).

In contrast, if you have MASH, you may have symptoms. Moreover, it could take years for them to show up. Consequently, sometimes liver damage from MASH causes long-term scarring and hardening of your liver. This is called cirrhosis. Additionally, it also increases the risk for liver cancer. Symptoms from MASH may include:

  • Severe tiredness (fatigue)
  • Pain in the right upper belly (abdomen)
  • Weight loss
  • Yellowing of the skin or eyes (jaundice)
  • Spiderlike blood vessels on the skin
  • Long-lasting itching
  • Weakness

Furthermore, MASH that turns into cirrhosis could cause these symptoms:

Extra fluid buildup (fluid retention)

  • Internal bleeding
  • Muscle wasting

Notably, these symptoms may look like other health problems. Therefore, always see your healthcare provider for a diagnosis.

Diagnosis

Metabolic dysfunction-associated steatotic liver disease can happen without causing any symptoms. Healthcare providers often diagnose it when you have routine blood tests to check your liver. Your healthcare provider may think you have it if your test results are abnormal. This is especially true if you have obesity or diabetes.

Your healthcare provider may use these tests to help make a diagnosis:

  • Imaging tests. Ultrasound, CT scan, or MRI may show fat deposits in your liver.
  • Blood tests. Healthcare providers make use blood tests to check how well your liver is working. They can also check for other causes of liver disease.
  • Liver biopsy. The provider puts a long needle through your skin into your liver. The needle removes a small piece of liver tissue. The lab can look at the tissue under a microscope.

Based on the test results, your healthcare provider will make the following diagnosis:

First, you have MASLD if you have fat but no inflammation or tissue damage.

Moreover, you have MASH if you have fat, inflammation, and liver damage.

Finally, you may be developing cirrhosis if you have a type of scar tissue in your liver called fibrosis.

Treatment

“If you have MASLD without any other health problems, you don’t need any special treatment. However, making some lifestyle changes can control or even reverse the fat buildup in your liver. These may include:

  • First, losing weight
  • Second, lowering your cholesterol and triglycerides
  • Moreover, controlling your diabetes, if needed
  • Not drinking alcohol

On the other hand, if you have MASH, no medicine can fully reverse the fat buildup in your liver. Sometimes, the liver damage stops or even reverses itself. Nevertheless, for other people, the disease keeps getting worse. Therefore, if you have MASH, it’s important to control any conditions that may help cause the disease. Treatments and lifestyle changes may include:

  • Losing weight
  • Exercising more
  • Taking medicine to lower cholesterol or triglycerides
  • Taking medicine to lower blood pressure
  • Taking medicine to control diabetes
  • Limiting over-the-counter medicines
  • Not drinking alcohol. In fact, no amount of alcohol is known to be fully safe once you have MASH.
  • Eating a diet low in fat and simple carbohydrates
  • Seeing a liver specialist

Moreover, your healthcare provider may advise certain medicines if you have MASH. These include vitamin E in people without diabetes or heart disease. Additionally, they include pioglitazone, a diabetes medicine for people with or without diabetes. But these have side effects, so talk about them with your healthcare provider. Other medicines, including certain herbal supplements, are being looked into. Treating the underlying conditions is the absolute most important thing and is more effective than any medicine.

Biospecimens

biospecimen

Bay Biosciences is, indeed a global leader in providing researchers with high quality, clinical grade, fully characterized human tissue samples, bio-specimens, and human bio-fluid collections.

Specifically, samples available include cancer (tumor) tissue, cancer serum, cancer plasma, cancer, peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMC) and human tissue samples from most other therapeutic areas and diseases.

Moreover, Bay Biosciences maintains and manages its own biorepository, the human tissue bank (biobank) consisting of thousands of diseased samples (specimens) and from normal healthy donors available in all formats and types.

In fact, our biobank procures and stores fully consented, de-identified and institutional review boards (IRB) approved human tissue samples and matched controls.

Additionally, all our human tissue collections, human specimens and human bio-fluids are provided with detailed, samples associated patient’s clinical data.

In particular, critical patient’s clinical data includes information relating to their past and current disease, treatment history, lifestyle choices, biomarkers, and genetic information.

Moreover, researchers find patient’s data extremely valuable and use it to help identify new effective treatments (drug discovery & development) in oncology, and other therapeutic areas and diseases.

Specifically, Bay Biosciences banks wide variety of human tissue samples and biological samples, including cryogenically preserved at – 80°C.

For example fresh frozen tissue samples, tumor tissue samples, formalin-fixed paraffin-embedded (FFPE), tissue slides, with matching human bio-fluids, whole blood and blood-derived products such as serum, plasma and PBMC.

Furthermore, Bay Biosciences is a global leader in collecting and providing human tissue samples according to the specified requirements and customized, tailor-made collection protocols.

Therefore, please contact us anytime to discuss your special research projects and customized human tissue sample requirements.

Types of Biospecimens

Bay Biosciences provides human tissue samples (human specimens) from diseased and normal healthy donors which includes:

  • Firstly, Peripheral whole-blood
  • Secondly, Amniotic fluid
  • Third, Bronchoalveolar lavage fluid (BAL)
  • Moreover, Sputum
  • Furthermore, Pleural effusion
  • Next, Cerebrospinal fluid (CSF)
  • Also, Serum (sera)
  • Likewise, Plasma
  • In addition, Peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMC)
  • For example, Saliva
  • Also, Buffy coat
  • Moreover, Urine
  • Furthermore, stool samples
  • Next, Aqueous humor
  • Likewise, Vitreous humor
  • Lastly, Kidney stones (renal calculi)
  • Finally, Other bodily fluids from most diseases including cancer.

Moreover, we can also procure most human bio-specimens, furthermore; we offer special collections and requests for human samples that are difficult to find. All our human tissue samples are procured through IRB-approved clinical protocols and procedures.

In addition to the standard processing protocols, Bay Biosciences can also provide human plasma, serum, and PBMCbio-fluid samples using custom processing protocols. Additionally, you buy donor-specific collections in higher volumes and specified sample aliquots from us.

Furthermore, Bay Biosciences also provides human samples from normal healthy donors; volunteers, for controls and clinical research, contact us Now.

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