Eating tomatoes daily may help decrease fat buildup in the liver

• Metabolic dysfunction-associated liver disease (MASLD) is a common liver condition that requires careful management.
• Research is ongoing about what food choices are most helpful for managing MASLD.
• One exploratory randomized controlled trial in participants with MASLD found that eating tomatoes daily helped to decrease fat buildup in the liver. Metabolic dysfunction-associated liver disease (MASLD) includes a range of liver problems, but a main feature is hepatic steatosis, which is fat buildup in the liver.For a diagnosis of MASLD, people also need to have at least one cardiometabolic risk factor like obesity or high blood pressure.Diet and lifestyle changes can be helpful for people who have MASLD, and experts are interested in also understanding what specific food choices may be most helpful. A study published in Nutrients explored whether consuming tomatoes was helpful for individuals with MASLD.Researchers found that participants who ate raw tomatoes and tomato sauce daily saw a greater decrease in hepatic steatosis than the control group.While there is still a lot more research needed in this area, the results suggest a possible benefit for people with MASLD consuming more tomatoes in their diets.Tomatoes and MASLDThe authors of this study wanted to see how tomatoes, a common food in the Mediterranean diet, affected liver steatosis.All tomato products came from the same producer. Other than the intervention, researchers told participants to continue their normal lifestyles.The tomato intervention lasted for 6 weeks. Researchers assessed a number of health indicators, including body composition, hepatic steatosis, liver stiffness, and cholesterol levels.Researchers found that hepatic steatosis actually declined in both groups. However, there was a greater decrease for those in the intervention group.Further evaluation indicated that hepatic steatosis was similar at baseline between the two groups. When it came to other measurements like liver stiffness, researchers did not find any major changes.They also didn’t find any significant differences between the groups when it came to components like lipids, liver enzymes, and body mass index after the 6-week intervention time.The authors suggest that their findings indicate that “tomato consumption may reduce hepatic fat accumulation independently of major changes in body weight, total and abdominal adiposity.”Study limitations and continued researchThe intervention time only lasted for 6 weeks, so any long-term benefits are not something this study can speak to. The research also only included adults aged 65 and younger, so it’s unclear how results may differ in older adults.Most of the participants were men, so more balanced groups may be valuable in future research too. Additionally, excluding participants who had a body mass index of over 30 could have also limited the findings.

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