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Purpose:To compare noninvasive MRI and magnetic resonance spectroscopy (MRS) methods with liver biopsy to quantify liver fat content. Materials and Methods:Quantification of liver fat was compared by liver biopsy, proton MRS, and MRI using inphase/out-of-phase (IP/OP) and plus/minus fat saturation (ϮFS) techniques. The reproducibility of each MR measure was also determined. An additional group of overweight patients with steatosis underwent hepatic MRI and MRS before and after a six-month weight-loss program. Results:A close correlation was demonstrated between histological assessment of steatosis and measurement of intrahepatocellular lipid (IHCL) by MRS (r s ϭ 0.928, P Ͻ 0.0001) and MRI (IP/OP r s ϭ 0.942, P Ͻ 0.0001; FS r s ϭ 0.935, P Ͻ 0.0001). Following weight reduction, four of five patients with Ͼ5% weight loss had a decrease in IHCL of Ն50%. Conclusion:These findings suggest that standard MRI protocols provide a rapid, safe, and quantitative assessment of hepatic steatosis. This is important because MRS is not available on all clinical MRI systems. This will enable noninvasive monitoring of the effects of interventions such as weight loss or pharmacotherapy in patients with fatty liver diseases.

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The over increasing demand of eco-friendly materials to counter various problems, such as environmental issues, economics, sustainability, biodegradability, and biocompatibility, open up new fields of research highly focusing on nature-based products. Edible polymer based materials mainly consisting of polysaccharides, proteins, and lipids could be a prospective contender to handle such problems. Hydrogels based on edible polymer offer many valuable properties compared to their synthetic counterparts. Edible polymers can contribute to the reduction of environmental contamination, advance recyclability, provide sustainability, and thereby increase its applicability along with providing environmentally benign products. This review is highly emphasizing on toward the development of hydrogels from edible polymer, their classification, properties, chemical modification, and their potential applications. The application of edible polymer hydrogels covers many areas including the food industry, agricultural applications, drug delivery to tissue engineering in the biomedical field and provide more safe and attractive products in the pharmaceutical, agricultural, and environmental fields, etc.

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