Washington Post Article Brings Attention to Pediatric NAFLD and How C15:0 May Help Tackle the Alarming Rise in this Liver Disease

The Washington Post releases an article on rise in liver disease.

SAN DIEGO, Oct. 3, 2023 /PRNewswire-PRWeb/ -- Today, The Washington Post spotlights the alarming rise of nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (also called NAFLD) in kids and how C15:0 may help transform the battle against this escalating global health crisis.

Pediatric NAFLD affects 1 in 10 children, leading to the progression of nonalcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH) and grave liver complications. Healthcare practitioners and researchers have been fervently searching for remedies, and today, the Washington Post's reporting on Drs. Jeffrey Schwimmer and Stephanie Venn-Watson's ongoing research offers a glimmer of hope through the use of C15:0 (pentadecanoic acid). This effort is particularly urgent given the lack of any FDA-approved treatments for NAFLD.

C15:0 (pentadecanoic acid, an odd-chain saturated fatty acid) is the first essential fatty acid to be discovered in 90 years, since omega-3. As reported in the Washington Post, Dr. Schwimmer first learned about C15:0 after reaching out to Dr. Venn-Watson, a veterinary epidemiologist who was studying fatty liver disease in US Navy dolphins. Using an advanced metabolomics technology, Dr. Venn-Watson discovered that increasing dolphins' dietary intake of C15:0 effectively alleviated an underlying driver of NASH.

For the past 10 years, Drs. Schwimmer and Venn-Watson have been working in parallel to test the bold hypothesis that nutritional C15:0 deficiencies are causing NAFLD. In addition to her discovery of C15:0 as an essential fatty acid, Dr. Venn-Watson, co-founder of Seraphina Therapeutics, also showed that C15:0 has strong anti-inflammatory and antifibrotic (anti-cirrhosis) activities and targets key receptors (called PPAR-ɑ/̔), which have held promise in treating NAFLD. Her studies also demonstrated that daily treatment with pure C15:0 effectively attenuated NASH in a relevant model.

Meanwhile, in an extensive study including 237 children, Dr. Schwimmer showed that the higher a child's circulating C15:0 levels, the less fat was present in that child's liver. As head of Rady Children's Hospital's Fatty Liver Disease Clinic and a leader in pediatric NAFLD, Dr. Schwimmer recently completed a randomized, double blinded, and placebo controlled clinical trial to assess the ability of pure C15:0 supplementation to effectively raise C15:0 levels and affect physiological indices of metabolic and liver health.

Our primary dietary source of C15:0 is dairy fat, and declining intake of whole fat dairy products over the past 40 years has led to population wide decreases in C15:0 levels. Coincident with drastic reduction of C15:0 in diets, was the recognition of a disease called NAFLD. Over the past 10 years, NAFLD has risen in prevalence at an alarming rate, with a global increase from 1 in 4 people before 2005 to 1 in 3 people since 2016. NAFLD is quickly becoming the leading cause of liver cancer and liver transplants globally. Beyond Dr. Schwimmer's research with children, multiple studies have linked lower C15:0 levels in adults to a higher risk of having NAFLD.

"Mounting evidence supports that nutritional C15:0 deficiencies may be driving the rise in NAFLD. While more work needs to be done, burgeoning hope lies in a relatively simple way to fix this global crisis, including among children," said Dr. Venn-Watson.

The Washington Post article, entitled "Fatty liver was a disease of the old. Then kids started getting sick," is part of an in-depth health series called, "Dying Early, America's Life Expectancy Crisis: An Epidemic of Chronic Illness is Killing Us Too Soon." Beyond NAFLD, voluminous research has shown that people with higher C15:0 levels are less likely to develop type 2 diabetes, heart disease, and some types of cancers.

This groundbreaking research underscores the profound role that fixing nutritional C15:0 deficiencies may play in stopping the epidemic of chronic diseases, including NAFLD. To learn more about the mounting science behind C15:0, please visit http://www.DiscoverC15.com.

About Seraphina Therapeutics. Inc.

Seraphina Therapeutics, Inc. is a health and wellness company dedicated to advancing global health through the discovery of essential fatty acids and micronutrient therapeutics. Through rigorous breakthrough science, the company develops fatty acid supplements, food fortifiers, and nutritional interventions to strengthen cells, keep mitochondria working and advance cellular homeostasis to counter age-related breakdown. With its team of industry-leading scientists, Seraphina Therapeutics challenges long-held approaches to nutrition, enabling the creation of novel health products designed to support quality of life. For more information, please visit DiscoverC15.com and fatty15.com.

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