New Delhi:
Some good news coming in for alcohol lovers!
If you guys consume a measured, controlled diet then it may help in keeping your liver protected from the risks of binge drinking, says a study.
Binge drinking is broadly defined as the habit of consuming large quantities of alcohol in a single go or drinking a huge amount of alcohol in a short space of time to get drunk.
Binge drinking usually results in alcoholic liver disease which is a universal health burden with disease spectrum ranging from hepatomegaly and simple fatty liver to more severe pathologies such as alcoholic steatohepatitis and hepatic cirrhosis.
The study compared mice that were bred to especially consume high amounts of alcohol (crossed-High Alcohol Preferring, or cHAP, mice) to the other category of mice using a chronic-binge ethanol ingestion model to induce alcoholic liver disease.
They were randomly given different diets for four weeks and then their tissue and serum were collected.
It was found that the cHAP mice on a diet of alcohol and water consumed significantly more alcohol than cHAP or other mice maintained on an alcohol diet.
On the other hand, cHAP and other mice on the alcohol diet along with artificial sugar maltodextrin had greater hepatosteatosis and overall degree of liver injury compared to mice that consumed a diet of alcohol and water together with maltodextrin.
The findings suggest that although cHAP mice consume consistently high/sustained levels of ethanol, other factors such as disparities in specific dietary components, differences in the patterns of alcohol consumption, and timing of feeding relative to peak blood-alcohol content, alter the degree of liver injury in cHAP versus other mice.
"A critical role of the gut microbiome and fecal metabolites is becoming increasingly Appreciated," wrote Irina Kirpich and Craig McClain from Oxford University.
Marked differences in the composition of the diets used in this study may help explain why mice consuming the highest amounts of alcohol did not develop the most severe liver injury.
The research appears in the Journal of Alcohol and Alcoholism.
(With Agency inputs)
