Copyright
©The Author(s) 2023. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Gastroenterol. May 21, 2023; 29(19): 2905-2915
Published online May 21, 2023. doi: 10.3748/wjg.v29.i19.2905
Published online May 21, 2023. doi: 10.3748/wjg.v29.i19.2905
Branched chain amino acids in hepatic encephalopathy and sarcopenia in liver cirrhosis: Evidence and uncertainties
Giuseppe Marrone, Amato Serra, Luca Miele, Marco Biolato, Antonio Liguori, Antonio Grieco, Antonio Gasbarrini, Medical and Surgical Sciences, Fondazione Policlinico Universitario A. Gemelli-IRCCS, Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, Rome 00168, Italy
Author contributions: Marrone G and Serra A were responsible for the conception and writing of the paper; Miele L, Biolato M, and Liguori A reviewed the manuscript; Grieco A and Gasbarrini A performed final editing of the manuscript; and all the authors approved the final version of the manuscript.
Conflict-of-interest statement: All the authors report no relevant conflicts of interest for this article.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article that was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: https://creativecommons.org/Licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Corresponding author: Giuseppe Marrone, MD, PhD, Consultant Physician-Scientist, Medical and Surgical Sciences, Fondazione Policlinico Universitario A. Gemelli-IRCCS, Largo Agostino Gemelli 8, Rome 00168, Italy. giuseppe.marrone@policlinicogemelli.it
Received: December 28, 2022
Peer-review started: December 28, 2022
First decision: January 10, 2023
Revised: January 24, 2023
Accepted: April 20, 2023
Article in press: April 20, 2023
Published online: May 21, 2023
Peer-review started: December 28, 2022
First decision: January 10, 2023
Revised: January 24, 2023
Accepted: April 20, 2023
Article in press: April 20, 2023
Published online: May 21, 2023
Core Tip
Core Tip: Nutritional perturbance is frequent in liver cirrhosis and has been correlated with the development of complications such as hepatic encephalopathy and sarcopenia. Branched-chain amino acids (BCAAs) have been implicated in the pathophysiology of these two complications and supplementation has been proposed as a therapeutic measure. In this review, we will examine the scientific evidence supporting the clinical use of BCAAs in cirrhotic subjects.