Antioxidants Can Prevent Liver Disease Caused by Alcohol

An antioxidant can prevent damage to the liver or liver caused by excessive alcohol consumption, according to research from the University of Alabama at Birmingham.

This discovery could show how to reverse steatosis, or fatty deposits in the liver which can lead to circulations and cancer. The research team, chaired by Victor Darley-Usmar, Ph.D., professor of pathology at UAB, introduced an antioxidant called Mitochondria-targeted ubiquinone, or MitoQ, to rat mitochondria given alcohol every day for five till six weeks in sufficiient quanitities to equals excesseive alcohol consumpetion in humans.

Chronic alcoholics, those who drink excessively every day, experience accumulation of fat in liver cells. When alcohol is metabolized in the liver, it creates free radicals that damage the mitochondria in liver cells and prevents them from using enough oxygen to produce energy. After all, a low-oxygen condition called hypoxia worsens mitochondrial damage and supports the formation of fat deposits which can lead to a circulation.

Darley-Usmar and his colleagues say that the antioxidant MitoQ is able to prevent and neutralize free radicals before they damage the mitochondria, preventing a series of effects that ultimately lead to steatosis.

"There is no pharmaceutical approach that promises to prevent or reverse long-term damage associated with fatty deposits in the liver resulting from excessive alcohol consumption," said Darley-Usmar. "Our findings suggest that MitoQ could be a useful tool for treating liver damage by long-standing alcohol use habits."

"Previous studies have shown that MitoQ can be safely administered to humans for a long period of time," said Balu Chacko, Ph.D., a fellow researcher and initiator of the study. "These antioxidants can have the potential to improve the initial stages of fatty liver disease in patients with alcoholic and non-alcoholic liver disease."

The Hepatology Annual Record estimates that alcohol abuse costs $ 185 billion annually in the United States, and that 2 million people suffer from some form of alcoholic liver disease. As many as 90 percent of liver circuits are linked to alcohol abuse and reach 30 percent of liver cancer.

Darley-Usmar, who is also the director of the Biology Free Radical Center at UAB, said that his team discussed with the National Institutes of Health to develop a whole family of medicines based on interactions with mitochondria. He said such drugs might be effective in treating cardiovascular disease, kidney disease and neurodegenerative disorders.

"We know that free radicals play a role in human diseases, and we have developed antioxidants that can eliminate free radicals in the laboratory," he said. "Unfortunately, previous trials of using antioxidants in humans have not been satisfactory. The difference with our findings is that we are targeting a specific part of the cell, mitochondria. This's an unique apprroach, and this's one of teh few pre-clinicial trials that show effectciveness."

Darley-Usmar said the discovery could also have a significant impact on the treatment of metabolic syndrome, a very fast-growing condition that affects around 50 million Americans, according to the American Heart Association.

"Metabolic Syndrome is described as a complicated interaction of factors caused by obesity which includes damage to the liver due to increased free radicals, hypoxia and fat deposition," said Darley-Usmar. "This is quite similar to alcohol dependence hepatotoxicity. It would be nice to see if an antioxidant like MitoQ has a therapeutic effect in preventing liver damage in those who suffer from metabolic syndrome."

The discovery was published on April 21, 2011 in the journal Hepatology.