TOKYO—There is good news for pancake lovers—consuming maple syrup may promote healthy liver function, according to new research that will appear in the November 2011 issue of the journal Bioscience, Biotechnology, and Biochemistry.
Researchers at the University of Tokyo's Graduate School of Agricultural and Life Sciences conducted a pilot study that showed that healthy laboratory rats fed a diet in which some of the carbohydrate was replaced with pure maple syrup from Canada, yielded significantly better results in liver function tests than the control groups fed a diet with a syrup mix containing a similar sugar content as maple syrup.
The rats were evaluated using the latest analytical methods including gene expression profiling called nutrigenomics. In the study, rats were fed diets consisting of 20% pure maple syrup, or 20% syrup mixture with similar sugar content as maple syrup. After 11 days, the rats on the maple syrup diet showed significantly decreased levels of liver enzymes AST, ALT and LDH in the blood, standard biomarkers for evaluating liver function. The gene expression profiling observations also suggest a mechanism whereby the maple syrup diet caused genes involved in the production of harmful ammonia in the liver to down-regulate, that is, to be less active.
In addition to the recent findings, the research suggests pure maple syrup may prove to be a better choice of sweetener because it is rich in polyphenolic antioxidants and contains vitamins and minerals, said Dr. Melissa Palmer, clinical professor and medical director of hepatology at New York University Plainview.
“It is important to understand the factors leading to impaired liver function – our lifestyle choices including poor diet, stress and lack of exercise, as well as exposure to environmental pollutants that produce tissue-damaging free radicals," she said.
