Alcohol or gut microbiota: Who is the guilty?

The purpose of this 2019 review was to discuss the potential beneficial effects of gut microbiota modulation in managing alcohol liver disease (ALD), a disorder caused by excessive alcohol consumption. ALD can be a broad range of hepatic injuries including asymptomatic steatosis, alcoholic steatohepatitis (ASH), fibrosis, cirrhosis, and hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC), and its risk factors are highly variable. Among them, the intestinal microbiota and its metabolites have been identified as paramount in ALD pathophysiology, which is what Meroni et al. (2019) discusses in this review. It was mentioned that ethanol abuse triggers alterations in intestinal flora taxonomic composition, mucosal inflammation, and intestinal barrier derangement, which is what leads to pathogenic bacteria, Gram-negative microbial products, and pro-inflammatory luminal metabolites entering the bloodstream. [NPID: substance use, addiction, drugs, gut microbiota, alcohol liver disease, hepatic injuries, steatosis, alcoholic steatohepatitis, fibrosis, cirrhosis, hepatocellular carcinoma, gastrointestinal, gut microbiome, gut-brain axis, microbiota, ethanol, inflammation, mucosal inflammation]

Year: 2019

Reference: Meroni, M., Longo, M., & Dongiovanni, P. (2019). Alcohol or Gut Microbiota: Who Is the Guilty?. International journal of molecular sciences, 20(18), 4568. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijms20184568