Alcohol Consumption Dramatically Affects Vitamin A Metabolism
02 Sept 2015 --- Scientists have found that chronic alcohol consumption has a dramatic effect on the way the body handles vitamin A. Long-term drinking lowers vitamin A levels in the liver, which is the main site of alcohol breakdown and vitamin A storage, while raising vitamin A levels in many other tissues. This opens the doors for novel treatments of alcoholic liver disease that focus on counteracting alcohol's effect on vitamin A in the liver.
Clugston and colleagues conducted multiple experiments using several groups of mice including those who received alcohol-containing food and alcohol-free food. They analyzed the liver and other organs (i.e., kidney, spleen, heart, lung, white adipose, brown adipose and blood), from both groups of mice and measured tissue vitamin A levels. The alcohol-fed mice had distinct changes in how their body handled vitamin A. In general, vitamin A levels were lower in the liver and higher in other tissues. This strongly suggests that vitamin A in the liver is reduced by excessive alcohol consumption and that these findings are important in the development of alcoholic liver disease.
"This research not only give us new insights into how chronic alcoholism affects vitamin A in the liver," said Gerald Weissmann, M.D., Editor-in-Chief ofThe FASEB Journal, "but it also sheds light on how our body processes vitamin A overall. This is particularly important since some people get too much vitamin A through 'supplements,' while others still do not get enough because of poor access to proper nutrition."
