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Mri Of Structural & Functional Changes Associated With Western Diet Consumption, Lauren M. Smith

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

The Western diet (WD) is a high-fat, high-sugar diet increasingly common in the Western world and is associated with adverse effects in many organs, though the mechanisms behind these changes are unclear. Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) techniques that provide structural and functional information non-invasively were used to investigate the effect of the WD on the liver and placenta in a guinea pig model.

The WD leads to a manifestation of the metabolic syndrome in the liver known as non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD). Fat-fraction MRI was used to confirm the onset of NAFLD in a guinea pig model fed a …