Alcohol consumption in the general population is associated with structural changes in multiple organ systems
- University of Ioannina, Greece
- Imperial College London, United Kingdom
- Brunel University London, United Kingdom
Abstract
Background: Excessive alcohol consumption is associated with damage to various organs, but its multi-organ effects have not been characterised across the usual range of alcohol drinking in a large general population sample.
Methods: We assessed global effect sizes of alcohol consumption on quantitative magnetic resonance imaging phenotypic measures of the brain, heart, aorta and liver of UK-Biobank participants who reported drinking alcohol.
Results: We found a monotonic association of higher alcohol consumption with lower normalised brain volume across the range of alcohol intakes (–1.7´10-3±0.76´10-3 per doubling of alcohol consumption, P=3.0´10-14). Alcohol consumption also was associated directly with measures of left ventricular mass index and left ventricular and atrial volume indices. Liver fat increased by a mean of 0.15% per doubling of alcohol consumption.
Conclusions: Our results imply that there is not a 'safe threshold' below which there are no toxic effects of alcohol. Current public health guidelines concerning alcohol consumption may need to be revisited.
Funding: See acknowledgements
Data availability
For this project, UK Biobank has granted access to our team through approved applications with ID #13375 and #18545. Individual-level data cannot be shared with researchers who are not registered as collaborators (https://www.ukbiobank.ac.uk/enable-your-research/manage-your-project). Guidance on how to apply for the various types of UK Biobank can be found in the following link https://www.ukbiobank.ac.uk/enable-your-research/apply-for-access.
Article and author information
Author details
Evangelos Evangelou
Paul M Matthews MD, PhD
Funding
The funders had no role in study design, data collection and interpretation, or the decision to submit the work for publication.
Ethics
Human subjects: In UK Biobank, ethical approval for data collection was received from the North-West Multi-centre Research Ethics Committee (REC reference: 11/NW/0382) and the research was carried out in accordance with the Declaration of Helsinki of the World Medical Association. No additional ethical approval was required for the analyses of the data.
Copyright
© 2021, Evangelou et al.
This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License permitting unrestricted use and redistribution provided that the original author and source are credited.
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Alcohol consumption in the general population is associated with structural changes in multiple organ systems
eLife 10:e65325.
https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.65325
Further reading
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- Epidemiology and Global Health
Background:
The role of circulating metabolites on child development is understudied. We investigated associations between children’s serum metabolome and early childhood development (ECD).
Methods:
Untargeted metabolomics was performed on serum samples of 5004 children aged 6–59 months, a subset of participants from the Brazilian National Survey on Child Nutrition (ENANI-2019). ECD was assessed using the Survey of Well-being of Young Children’s milestones questionnaire. The graded response model was used to estimate developmental age. Developmental quotient (DQ) was calculated as the developmental age divided by chronological age. Partial least square regression selected metabolites with a variable importance projection ≥1. The interaction between significant metabolites and the child’s age was tested.
Results:
Twenty-eight top-ranked metabolites were included in linear regression models adjusted for the child’s nutritional status, diet quality, and infant age. Cresol sulfate (β=–0.07; adjusted-p <0.001), hippuric acid (β=–0.06; adjusted-p <0.001), phenylacetylglutamine (β=–0.06; adjusted-p <0.001), and trimethylamine-N-oxide (β=–0.05; adjusted-p=0.002) showed inverse associations with DQ. We observed opposite directions in the association of DQ for creatinine (for children aged –1 SD: β=–0.05; pP=0.01;+1 SD: β=0.05; p=0.02) and methylhistidine (–1 SD: β = - 0.04; p=0.04;+1 SD: β=0.04; p=0.03).
Conclusions:
Serum biomarkers, including dietary and microbial-derived metabolites involved in the gut-brain axis, may potentially be used to track children at risk for developmental delays.
Funding:
Supported by the Brazilian Ministry of Health and the Brazilian National Research Council.
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- Epidemiology and Global Health
- Microbiology and Infectious Disease
Several areas of the world suffer a notably high incidence of Shiga toxin-producing Escherichia coli. To assess the impact of persistent cross-species transmission systems on the epidemiology of E. coli O157:H7 in Alberta, Canada, we sequenced and assembled E. coli O157:H7 isolates originating from collocated cattle and human populations, 2007–2015. We constructed a timed phylogeny using BEAST2 using a structured coalescent model. We then extended the tree with human isolates through 2019 to assess the long-term disease impact of locally persistent lineages. During 2007–2015, we estimated that 88.5% of human lineages arose from cattle lineages. We identified 11 persistent lineages local to Alberta, which were associated with 38.0% (95% CI 29.3%, 47.3%) of human isolates. During the later period, six locally persistent lineages continued to be associated with human illness, including 74.7% (95% CI 68.3%, 80.3%) of reported cases in 2018 and 2019. Our study identified multiple locally evolving lineages transmitted between cattle and humans persistently associated with E. coli O157:H7 illnesses for up to 13 y. Locally persistent lineages may be a principal cause of the high incidence of E. coli O157:H7 in locations such as Alberta and provide opportunities for focused control efforts.
