HWN Suggests

Alcoholic Liver Disease: Overlooked, Underdiagnosed, and Positively Preventable

Whether it’s at your favorite sporting event, the office holiday party, celebratory occasions, or family gatherings, alcohol consumption is a common component of our daily lives. Alcohol is frequently referenced in popular culture. Advertisements for alcohol are everywhere you look. As pervasive as alcohol use is in our culture, its negative effects on a person’s health often go overlooked.

read full article

Featured

 Pour One Out

The boozy story of how we decided alcohol was a health boon in the ’90s—and how it all fell apart.

 Young Adults Are Increasingly Dying of Alcohol-Related Liver Disease

Muir suggests that while researchers have focused on hepatitis C and fatty liver disease, alcohol-related cirrhosis poses a more difficult challenge—in part because it’s preventable, but requires not just new treatments, but changing behaviors. We need more public awareness about appropriate drinking, he says, and we need more and better understanding among front-line clinicians about the scope of the problem.

Articles of Interest

Alcohol-Associated Liver Disease: Evolving Concepts and Treatments

Alcohol is a prominent cause of liver disease worldwide with higher prevalence in developed nations. The spectrum of alcohol-associated liver disease (ALD) encompasses a diverse range of clinical entities, from asymptomatic isolated steatosis to decompensated cirrhosis, and in some cases, acute or chronic liver failure.

Recent advances in alcohol-related liver disease (ALD)

Alcohol-related liver disease (ALD), which includes a range of disorders of different severity and is one of the most prevalent types of liver disease worldwide, has recently regained increased attention. Among other reasons, the realisation that any alcohol intake, regardless of type of beverage represents a health risk, and the new therapeutic strategies tested in recently published or undergoing clinical trials spur scientific interest in this area.

Alcohol-Related Liver Disease: Basic Mechanisms and Clinical Perspectives

Alcohol-related liver disease (ALD) refers to the liver damage occurring due to excessive alcohol consumption and involves a broad spectrum of diseases that includes liver steatosis, steatohepatitis, hepatitis, cirrhosis, and hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC).

Alcoholic Liver Disease: Act Before it’s Too Late!

Alcoholic Liver Disease (ALD) is a silent but increasingly prevalent health concern in today's society, and its impact on individuals and communities is profound. The journey from moderate alcohol consumption to advanced stages of liver damage is a complex and often misunderstood process.

Alcoholic liver disease: mechanisms of injury and targeted treatment

Alcoholic liver disease (ALD) is characterized by a complex spectrum of histological lesions, ranging from steatosis to cirrhosis.

Beethoven’s bad liver may not have been solely down to alcohol, say experts

Cambridge study reveals the great composer experienced a hepatitis B infection and was at high risk for liver disease.

Double Trouble for Alcohol-Associated Liver Disease

Alcohol-associated liver disease is the leading cause of liver cancer and liver scarring, known as cirrhosis, which reduces the liver’s ability to filter our blood. Liver ailments caused by alcohol consumption account for almost half of all deaths from diseases of the liver and are rising dramatically. In fact, alcohol-associated liver disease increased by 23 percent in the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic. Yet even after five decades of study, there are no FDA-approved drugs available to treat alcohol-associated liver disease. The only cure is a liver transplant, but even that does not always work.

Drinking one too many can damage your liver

It used to be associated with older heavy drinkers but serious liver disease is rising fast in young people. All it takes is a few pints of lager and glasses of wine a week.

Pathophysiology and Management of Alcoholic Liver Disease: Update

Alcoholic liver disease (ALD) is a leading cause of cirrhosis, liver cancer, and acute and chronic liver failure and as such causes significant morbidity and mortality. While alcohol consumption is slightly decreasing in several European countries, it is rising in others and remains high in many countries around the world. The pathophysiology of ALD is still incompletely understood but relates largely to the direct toxic effects of alcohol and its main intermediate, acetaldehyde.

Study Finds Drinking Alcohol Associated With Heart-Rhythm Disorder

Using long-term hospital-admissions data from Texas, researchers found a link between drinking alcohol and atrial fibrillation

The Top Cause of Alcohol-Related Deaths Can Go Undetected for Years

Deaths from alcohol-related liver disease are rising, especially among younger adults and women.

Why Are More Millennials Dying of Alcohol-Related Liver Disease?

It’s a pretty well-established fact that drinking a lot of alcohol isn’t good for you. But disturbing findings from a new study may have many young people rethinking their drinking habits.

Resources

8 things we’ve learned about how alcohol harms the body

Scientists are finding that even moderate drinking may be more harmful than we thought—and certain groups are more at risk.

Liver Foundation

One type of liver disease caused by alcohol is alcohol-associated fatty liver*. Extra fat builds up in the liver cells. Most “heavy drinkers” develop this condition. It usually reverses if a person stops drinking alcohol. Alcohol-associated hepatitis is inflammation (swelling) of the liver. Liver cells can be destroyed because of this condition. It can reverse if a person stops drinking alcohol. Alcohol-associated cirrhosis is the most serious type of alcohol-associated liver disease. A liver with cirrhosis has become hardened with scar tissue. This makes it harder for the liver to function. Cirrhosis may be reversible in its earliest stages, but it is generally not reversible. in very advanced stages.

StatPearls

The first stage of alcoholic liver disease is hepatic steatosis, which involves the accumulation of small fat droplets under liver cells approaching the portal tracts. More advanced disease is characterized by marked steatosis, hepatocellular necrosis, and acute inflammation, known as alcoholic hepatitis.