In the early 1930s, Banting and Best, the discoverers of insulin, found that choline could
prevent the development of fatty liver disease (steatosis) in pancreatectomized dogs treated
with insulin. Later work indicated that in rats and mice, diets deficient in labile methyl groups
(choline, methionine, betaine, folate) produced fatty liver and that long-term administration of
diets deficient in choline and methionine also caused hepatocellular carcinoma. These
experiments not only linked steatosis and diabetes but also provided evidence, for the first …