Abstract
BACKGROUND: To evaluate the efficacy of sodium butyrate (NaB) in ameliorating nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) in animals. METHODS: Chinese and English databases (including PubMed, Embase, Web of Science, Cochrane Library, CNKI, Wangfang Data, CQVIP, and SinoMed) were searched for literature related to NaB to improve the animal model of NAFLD from the establishment of each database to 2023-02. 2 researchers independently screened the literature and extracted the data. The SYRCLE tool was used to assess risk of bias. The extracted data were analyzed using Revman 5.3 and Stata 17.0. RESULTS: A total of 1008 relevant references were reviewed, and 12 animal experiments involving 192 animals were included in the analysis: 96 in the NaB group and 96 in the model group. The results showed that animals in the NaB group had significantly lower levels of alanine aminotransferase (standardized mean difference (SMD) = -1.29, 95% confidence interval (CI) (-2.08, -0.49), P = .002], aspartate aminotransferase [SMD = -1.13, 95% CI (-1.75, -0.50), P = .0004], NAFLD activity scores [SMD = -3.19, 95%CI(-4.80, -1.58), P = .0001], triglyceride [SMD = -1.28, 95%CI(-1.66, -0.90), P < .00001] and total cholesterol levels [SMD = -1.39, 95%CI(-2.11, -0.67), P = .0002], interleukin-1β [SMD = -1.40, 95%CI (-1.87, -0.92), P < .00001], interleukin-6 [SMD = -1.38, 95%CI (-1.87, -0.90), P < .00001], tumor necrosis factor-alpha [SMD = -1.69, 95% CI (-2.10, -1.28), P < .00001], and other pro-inflammatory factors, and significantly higher tight junction protein-1 expression [SMD = 1.06, 95% CI (0.43,1.69), P = .0009]. CONCLUSION: NaB treatment improves liver function in animals with NAFLD, protected the liver tissue, reduced triglyceride and total cholesterol levels, inhibited inflammation, and protected intestinal barrier function.