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Excessive alcohol consumption is a global healthcare problem. The liver sustains the greatest degree of tissue injury by heavy drinking because it is the primary site of ethanol metabolism. Chronic and excessive alcohol consumption produces a wide spectrum of hepatic lesions, the most characteristic of which are steatosis, hepatitis, and fibrosis/cirrhosis. Steatosis is the earliest response to...

Among the many organ systems affected by harmful alcohol use, the lungs are particularly susceptible to infections and injury. The mechanisms responsible for rendering people with alcohol use disorder (AUD) vulnerable to lung damage include alterations in host defenses of the upper and lower airways, disruption of alveolar epithelial barrier integrity, and alveolar macrophage immune dysfunction...

Findings from epidemiologic studies and research with experimental animal models provide insights into alcohol-related disease pathogeneses. Epidemiologic data indicate that heavy drinking and smoking are associated with high rates of pancreatic disease. Less clear is the association between lower levels of drinking and pancreatitis. Intriguingly, a very low percentage of drinkers develop clinical...

Circadian Disruption and Society

The circadian clock is a sophisticated mechanism that functions to synchronize (i.e., entrain) endogenous systems with the 24-hour day in a wide variety of organisms, from simple organisms such as fungi up to the complex mammalian systems. Circadian rhythms control a variety of biological processes, including sleep/wake cycles, body temperature, hormone secretion...

Introduction

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...

Skeletal muscle dysfunction (i.e., myopathy) is common in patients with alcohol use disorder. However, few clinical studies have elucidated the significance, mechanisms, and therapeutic options of alcohol-related myopathy. Preclinical studies indicate that alcohol adversely affects both anabolic and catabolic pathways of muscle-mass maintenance and that an increased proinflammatory and oxidative...

The association between alcohol misuse and organ damage, specifically liver disease, has been recognized for more than 200 years (Maher 1997). Yet it was not until the early 1970s that researchers demonstrated a direct causal relationship between drinking and this serious—and sometimes fatal—condition.

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...

Introduction

Alcohol misuse is the most common form of substance misuse and is associated with liver, cardiovascular, and metabolic diseases as well as with infections and cancers.¹ Although an estimated 20% to 25% of people who drink heavily develop alcohol-related liver disease,² 40% to 60% of people with alcohol misuse have alcohol-related myopathy.³ Evidence that alcohol use leads to skeletal...