University Of California, Irvine-Led Study Reveals How Weekend Alcohol Binge Drinking Affects The Circadian Rhythm Of The Liver Leading To Disease
Source: Thailand Medical News Nov 23, 2019 5 years, 1 month, 6 hours, 15 minutes ago
University Of California, Irvine researchers conducted a new study that reveals how
alcohol affects the
liver's circadian rhythm, uncovering a potential new target for ALD treatments. Weekend
binge drinking and chronic alcoholism have long been known to contribute to
alcoholic liver diseases (
ALD).
Alcohol consumption is a widespread habit in modern society and can have serious metabolic consequences. Recent studies have uncovered the interplay between nutrition, metabolism and circadian rhythms. But, until now, little has been done to understand the effects of alcohol consumption on circadian metabolism.
The new study, titled, "Distinct Metabolic Adaptation of
Liver Circadian Pathways to Acute and Chronic Patterns of
Alcohol Intake," was published today in Proceedings of National Academies of Science.
The researchers used mice to analyze the effects of binge and chronic exposure to ethanol. They revealed that distinct drinking patterns elicit profoundly different effects through distinct cellular pathways, leading to differential adaptation of hepatic circadian metabolism.
Dr Paolo Sassone-Corsi, director of the UCI School of Medicine Center for Epigenetics and Metabolism and senior author of the study told
Thailand Medical News, "Our results showed how drinking patterns reprogrammed circadian metabolism in the
liver. By understanding how the circadian process is involved in alcoholic
liver disease, we can begin to target circadian therapeutics to develop better treatments."
In previous studies, Dr Sassone-Corsi examined how circadian clocks can be rewired by such factors as sleep deprivation, diet and exercise. He has also discovered that the circadian clock in the liver has intrinsic functions that are independent from other organs in the body, including the brain.
This new study underscores the link between circadian rhythms and alcohol metabolism. When consumed,
alcohol is primarily metabolized in the
liver and is a prominent risk factor for the development of
ALDs which include alcoholic hepatitis, cirrhosis and
liver cancer, among others.
University of California,Irvine researchers involved in the study included primary investigators Jonathan Gaucher and Kenichiro Knouchi, as well as Emilie Montellier, Carolina Magdalen Greco, Selma Masri and Pierre Baldi. Other researchers, from LMU Munich and the Leibniz Institute for Farm Animal Biology in Germany, and the Qingdao University in China, also contributed.
The research was supported by the National Cancer Institute of the US National Institutes of Health, the European Research Council, INSERM, DARPA and in part by the Pilot Project Program of NIAAA-funded Southern California Research Center for ALPD and Cirrhosis, among other funding sources.
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Reference: Distinct metabolic adaptation of liver circadian pathways to acute and chronic patterns of alcohol intake, Jonathan Gaucher, Kenichiro Kinouchi, Nicholas Ceglia, Emilie Montellier, Shahaf Peleg, Carolina Magdalen Greco, Andreas Schmidt, Ignasi Forne, Selma Masri, Pierre Baldi, Axel Imhof, and Paolo Sassone-Corsi, PNAS first published November 22, 2019 https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1911189116
