Exploring the Path to Inflammation Caused by a Fructose Rich Diet: How Intestinal Permability Affects the Gut-liver Axis

A fructose rich diet has been known to have nefarious effects on both mice and humans. However, the effects of this diet upon the intestine and surrounding tissues are still unclear. The intestine and the liver are the only organs that absorb fructose directly into metabolic processes, and are tightly connected via bile duct and hepatic portal vein, which means they both influence each other in the process, forming the gut-liver axis. This connection makes this axis susceptible to inflammatory and metabolic changes. The present work intends to show how a fructose rich diet can affect the intestine?s permeability, and how a change in permeability can affect the expression of specific key proteins in the liver of mice.