Study: Effect of Mastic supplementation on NAFLD: The MAST4HEALTH Randomised, Controlled Trial

In short: This page summarises a 2021 clinical trial, MAST4HEALTH, which investigated Chios mastic as a non-pharmacological intervention in NAFLD. Mastic has been studied for antioxidant and lipid-related activity, which set the rationale for the trial.

Methods and results

Ninety-eight patients with NAFLD across three countries (Greece, Italy, Serbia) were randomly allocated to either mastic or placebo for 6 months, in a multicentre, randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled, parallel-group clinical trial. NAFLD severity was assessed by MRI (LiverMultiScan), alongside medical, anthropometric, biochemical, metabolomic and microbiota measures.

Overall, mastic was not superior to placebo for changes in iron-corrected T1 (cT1) and the Liver Inflammation Fibrosis score (LIF) across the whole group. However, after stratifying by BMI, severely obese patients (BMI > 35 kg/m²) showed an improvement in cT1 and LIF on mastic versus placebo. Mastic also increased gut-microbiota dissimilarity (Bray-Curtis index), downregulated Flavonifractor (an inflammation-associated taxon), and decreased certain lipid metabolites (LysoPC 18:1, LysoPE 18:1) and cholic acid versus placebo.

Conclusion

The authors concluded that mastic supplementation improved microbiota dysbiosis and lipid-metabolite levels in patients with NAFLD, while it reduced markers of liver inflammation/fibrosis only in severely obese patients. You can read the full study here.