Colon hydrotherapy plus Traditional Chinese Medicine to treat non-alcoholic fatty liver disease:a pilot study

OBJECTIVE: To demonstrate the potential to treat non-alcoholic fatty liver disease(NAFLD) with colon hydrotherapy(CHT) plus Traditional Chinese Medicine(TCM).METHODS: A total of 20 patients were enrolled into the study and received CHT with TCM for 2 weeks.Body mass index(BMI) and levels of serum triglycerides(TG) and total cholesterol(TC) were compared between pre-treatment and post-treatment.RESULTS: Two-week treatment with CHT plus TCM significantly lowered BMI and reduced blood lipids.BMI decreased from 29.5 ± 4.3 to 25.4 ± 1.0, while mean TG levels decreased by 0.70 mmol/L on average from baseline and mean TC levels decreased by0.37 mmol/L. Forty-five percent of patients exhibited TC decreasing by more than 10% from baseline and25%ofpatientsexhibited TCdecreasingbymore than 20%. Sixty percent of patients exhibited TG decreasing by more than 20% and 20% of patients exhibited TG decreasing by more than 40%. However,high-density and low-density lipoprotein cholester-ol levels did not change significantly after intervention. No serious adverse events were reported.CONCLUSION: Our findings suggest that CHT plus TCM to treat NAFLD is promising and it might be a new treatment strategy for management of NAFLD.