Impact of Mesotherapy with Sodium Deoxycholate on Liver: Metabolic- and Sex-Specific Insights in Swiss mice

Sodium deoxycholate (DC) mesotherapy is approved for submental fat reduction but lacks evidence for body contouring safety in other body regions. Thus, we studied the systemic and hepatic metabolic effects of DC mesotherapy (50 µg/twice weekly for 4 weeks) in the inguinal white adipose tissue of female and male Swiss mice on a 20% fructose diet (drinking water) for 12 weeks. DC led to adipose tissue hemorrhage, foam cells, and fibrosis, although no body weight and adiposity loss, similar to humans. In males, glucose and hepatic metabolism, hepatic morphology, and protein expression (farnesoid X receptor and fibroblast growth factor-21) did not change by DC, even under fructose feeding. In females, although DC increased hepatic total cholesterol, most changes when detected were due to fructose (e.g., hepatic weight and lipid deposition). In conclusion, chronic DC mesotherapy proved safe for systemic and hepatic metabolism, and when adverse effects are present, they are sex-specific, impacting mostly females, especially under an unhealthy diet. Overall, care must be taken to extrapolate this data to humans since further studies are required to prove its safety in other body systems.

Key words
animal model; body contouring; deoxycholic acid; mesotherapy; metabolism; sodium deoxycholate