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Tracy Hampton, PhD

JAMA. 2008;299(13):1532.

	Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text and any section headings.

A compound that naturally occurs in grapefruit and certain other citrus fruits may be capable of fighting chronic hepatitis C infection by blocking an important pathway in the virus' life cycle. New studies conducted in human liver cells show that the common flavonoid naringenin inhibits the secretion of hepatitis C virus from infected cells, a process required to maintain chronic infection (Nahmias Y et al. Hepatology.doi:10.1002/hep.22197 [published online ahead of print January 7, 2008]).

Before they began their investigation of naringenin's effects on hepatitis C, researchers at the Massachusetts General Hospital Center for Engineering in Medicine in Boston first noted that hepatitis C virus is bound to very low-density lipoprotein (VLDL) when it is released from cells. "By finding that hepatitis C virus is secreted from infected cells by latching onto VLDL, we have identified a key pathway in the viral lifecycle," said lead author . . . [Full Text of this Article]