In our studies, lipid extraction (folch method) combined TC/TG quantification of liver tissues is the best way to approaching your question directly. However, ORO will be conducted as an additional data. If you do all analysis I had said, you could avoid the chellange from editor.

The publications of our team. 

Article Beneficial effects of noni (Morinda citrifolia L.) juice on ...

Article Effects of chicken-liver hydrolysates on lipid metabolism in...

I agree with Yi-hsieng Samuel Wu, assessment of histopathology along with liver lipid and liver function test in plasma is the right approach. 

Article A novel animal model of metabolic syndrome with non-alcoholi...

The answer of your question may be found in attached paper, plz check out.

Kind Regards

Have you tried the device—EchoMRI™? Though I haven't try this device, other researchers recommended to use this device.

Dear all,

Thank you very much for your comments. I don't think Oil Red is that useful at quantifying lipid accumulation. Sure it's a nice visual add-on to have and AFAIK there is an ImageJ macro that is semi-quantitative, but how many slides do you usually look at? Slides from different liver regions in each animal or from the same region in all animals? What staining controls are used?

Lipid extraction from the whole of the liver (or at least a the same lobe in all animals) is a pretty good way of quantifying lipid accumulation.

The disadvantage of both methods is that you can only do an endpoint - ie you have to kill the animal. Of course you can have control groups, but it would be much nicer to follow individual animals from before treatment to after. That should reduce the variation in the data and produce moch more accurate data... would probably reduce the number of mice needed (and when working with transgenics that is a significant cost).

That's why I was looking at non-invasive methods, but seems like only MRI or MRS are quantitative. MRI seems to be dependent on a number of variables too:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22372668

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20355234

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24047718

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24178986

Yes, I was looking at the EchoMRI.

 I was hoping to get some opinions from people who have been using non-invasive methods.

Could someone help me with the mechanism behind the chemical reaction of oil red stain and lipid droplets?