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Alcohol’s Effects on Lung Health and Immunity
People have been drinking alcoholic beverages for millennia, and alcohol consumption has played an important role throughout human history, being linked to ancient and modern religions, early medicine, and social occasions and celebrations. Although alcohol consumption is socially accepted across many cultures, heavy and prolonged alcohol intake can lead not only to physical dependence but also...
Development, Prevention, and Treatment of Alcohol-Induced Organ Injury: The Role of Nutrition
“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”
—George Santayana
Few observations in psychiatry have been documented as long and as consistently as the association between anxiety (and general negative affect) and the chronic misuse of alcohol. Research has shown that up to 50% of individuals receiving treatment for problematic alcohol use also met diagnostic criteria for one...
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-associated liver disease (ALD) is a leading cause of morbidity and mortality in people with alcohol use disorder (AUD).1 Alcohol exerts its effect on the liver through both direct and indirect pathways and can eventually lead to steatosis, steatohepatitis, fibrosis, hepatocellular carcinoma, and cirrhosis.2 However, only approximately 10% to 20% of patients with ALD develop...
How Does Stress Lead to Risk of Alcohol Relapse?
It has long been known that stress increases the risk of alcohol relapse (Sinha 2001). Clinical observations, surveys, and epidemiological studies document an association between self-reports of stressors and subsequent return to drinking. Studies assessing alcohol relapse after treatment completion and discharge also indicate the contribution of highly stressful events independent of alcohol use...
Understanding the mechanisms that underlie recovery from alcohol use disorder (AUD) is critical to advancing AUD treatment science (Huebner and Tonigan 2007; National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism [NIAAA] 2009). Scientific progress over the last three decades has led to the development of a number of effective behavioral and pharmacological AUD interventions (Dutra et al. 2008)...
In Utero Alcohol Exposure, Epigenetic Changes, and Their Consequences
Alcohol exposure of the developing embryo and fetus in utero can have a wide range of detrimental effects collectively referred to as fetal alcohol spectrum disorders (FASD). Researchers are intensively investigating the mechanisms that may contribute to alcohol’s effects on the developing organism and to the resulting consequences, particularly with respect to the cognitive and behavioral...
Alcoholic Myopathy: Pathophysiologic Mechanisms and Clinical Implications
Identifying Gene Networks Underlying the Neurobiology of Ethanol and Alcoholism
The multiple genetic, environmental, and behavioral factors that play a role in the development of alcohol use disorders (AUDs) make it difficult to identify individual genes linked to these disorders. Nevertheless, some genetic risk factors (i.e., specific variants) associated with AUDs have been identified within many genes, some of which code for proteins involved in known biological pathways...
