Author/Editor		Gavrić, Aleksandar; Ribnikar, Marija; Šmid, Lojze; Luzar, Boštjan; Štabuc, Borut
Title		Fat burner-induced acute liver injury
Type		članek
Vol. and No.		, št. Vol. 47
Publication year		2018
Volume		str. 110-114
ISSN		0899-9007 - Nutrition (Burbank, Los Angeles County, Calif.)
Language		eng
Abstract		Dietary supplements known as "fat burners" are typically marketed with claims of increasing energy expenditure through alterations in fat metabolism. They are marketed as natural products and their use is thus perceived as a safe body weight reduction strategy. We report on five episodes of liver injury in four patients. Liver injury was associated with consumption of different commercially available fat burners: Green tea extract (Camellia sinensis), Garcinia gummi-gutta, green coffee beans, and spirulina (blue-green algae). The patients were admitted to the Department of Gastroenterology and Hepatology at the University Medical Center Ljubljana, in Slovenia, from May 2010 to July 2015. The first patient developed acute liver failure and had to be treated by liver transplantation. Second patient developed acute hepatitis that resolved spontaneously. Another patient required multiple surgical procedures due to severe hemorrhage after liver biopsy. The last patient was treated for two separate episodes of fat burner%induced liver injury after ingesting two different products, in 2010 and 2015. Liver biopsy was performed in all patients and histopathologic examination revealed no other cause of liver injury. Viral, autoimmune, and metabolic liver diseases were excluded, making unsupervised consumption of fat burners the most likely causative agent.
Keywords		acute liver injury hepatotoxicity dietary supplements akutna poškodba jeter hepatotoksičnost prehranska dopolnila