Alcohol drinking even in small amount raises risk of steatotic liver disease

Even light or moderate consumption of alcohol can still increase the risk of steatotic liver disease (SLD) and its metabolic dysfunction-associated subtype (MASLD), suggests a study. Furthermore, a gut microbial score based on alcohol-associated species predicts a higher disease risk.

Researchers assessed alcohol intake among 1,297 adults from a Chinese community-based cohort using a validated questionnaire and diagnosed SLD using a vibration-controlled transient elastography. They also profiled gut microbiota in a subgroup with fecal samples (n=665) at follow-up using shotgun metagenomic sequencing.

The mean alcohol intake from baseline and follow-up were used to represent long-term drinking habits. The research team used zero-inflated Gaussian models with false discovery rate (FDR) correction to identify species differently associated with alcohol intake, and they estimated hazard ratio (HR) and odds ratio (OR) using Cox and logistic regression, respectively.

A total of 513 incident SLD cases were identified during follow-up. Light-to-moderate drinking significantly correlated with higher risks of SLD (HR, 1.27, 95 percent confidence interval [CI], 1.03‒1.58) and MASLD (HR, 1.27, 95 percent CI, 1.01‒1.59) relative to abstaining. Likewise, liquor consumption showed a significant association with SLD (HR, 1.29, 95 percent CI, 1.01‒1.65).

Some 89 microbial species were found to be associated with alcohol intake. These were then used to construct a microbial score, which positively correlated with SLD (OR_{T3 vs T1}, 1.54, 95 percent CI, 1.03‒2.31; p=0.05) and MASLD (OR_{T3 vs T1}, 1.50, 95 percent CI, 1.00‒2.26; p=0.05).

“Among these species, Stenotrophomonas maltophilia AQ, Olsenella E timonensis, and Firm 11 sp., which were less abundant in drinkers, showed inverse associations with both conditions after FDR correction,” the researcher said.