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Alcohol and Viral Hepatitis: Role of Lipid Rafts
Alcohol is the most used and abused psychoactive drug worldwide. Alcohol use and misuse, including alcohol use disorder, can have devastating effects and account for 5.9 percent of deaths and 5.1 percent of the global burden of disease and injury, thereby also imposing a significant social and economic burden on society (World Health Organization 2015). Moreover, treatments for alcohol abuse have...
The Gastrointestinal Microbiome: Alcohol Effects on the Composition of Intestinal Microbiota
It has been estimated that approximately 2 billion people worldwide drink alcohol on a daily basis, with more than 70 million people having a diagnosed alcohol use disorder (World Health Organization 2004). Globally, alcohol use is the fifth leading risk factor for premature death and disability among people between the ages of 15 and 49 (Lim et al. 2012). Excessive alcohol consumption in the...
Alcohol and the Immune System - Editor's Note
Clinicians have long observed an association between excessive alcohol consumption and adverse immune-related health effects such as susceptibility to pneumonia. In recent decades, this association has been expanded to a greater likelihood of acute respiratory stress syndromes (ARDS), sepsis, alcoholic liver disease (ALD), and certain cancers; a higher incidence of postoperative complications; and...
Impact of Alcohol Abuse on the Adaptive Immune System
In the United States, alcohol use disorder (AUD) is the third-leading cause of preventable death. It is associated with increased susceptibility to bacterial pneumonia; viral infections, such as HIV and hepatitis C virus (HCV); and increased postoperative morbidity and mortality. This increased susceptibility is mediated in part by functional alterations in various cells of the immune system. The...
Each year 2.5 million people die from alcohol abuse and its related morbidities worldwide, making alcohol related deaths among the highest preventable causes of death, and the greatest cause of premature death and disability in men between ages 15 and 59 (World Health Organization 2011). Alcohol abuse predisposes individuals to life-threatening conditions such as alcoholic liver disease (ALD)...
Epigenetic Events in Liver Cancer Resulting From Alcoholic Liver Disease
The molecular pathogenesis of liver cancer (i.e., hepatocellular carcinoma [HCC]) is a multistep process that involves both genetic changes, such as chromosomal abnormalities and mutations of the DNA sequence (i.e., somatic mutations), and epigenetic mechanisms, such as chemical modifications of the DNA and the histone proteins around which the DNA is wrapped to form the chromosomes, microRNA...
Epigenetic Effects of Ethanol on the Liver and Gastrointestinal System
Epigenetic modifications are emerging as important dynamic mechanisms contributing to both transient and sustained changes in gene expression. In some cases, epigenetic changes even can be inherited, although the mechanism for this remains elusive. Several types of epigenetic modifications have been studied in recent years. For example, several laboratories have actively examined modifications, of...
Epigenetic Targets for Reversing Immune Defects Caused by Alcohol Exposure
Extensive clinical and experimental data suggest that alcohol consumption has dose-dependent modulatory effects on the immune system that influence the two arms of the immune response (i.e., innate and adaptive immune responses). In many other organ systems, such as the brain and liver, alcohol consumption has been shown to alter factors that can modify gene expression without changing the DNA...
