Diet modifies the association between alcohol consumption and severe alcohol-related liver disease incidence

• Published in: Nature communications Vol. 15; no. 1; pp. 6880 - 9
• Main Authors: Petermann-Rocha, Fanny, Zhou, Ziyi, Mathers, John C., Celis-Morales, Carlos, Raubenheimer, David, Sattar, Naveed, Pell, Jill P., Forrest, Ewan, Ho, Frederick K.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: London Nature Publishing Group UK 11.08.2024; Nature Publishing Group; Nature Portfolio
• Subjects: 692/308/174; 692/4020; 692/499; 692/699/1503/1607/1608; Adult; Aged; Alcohol; Alcohol Drinking - adverse effects; Alcohol Drinking - epidemiology; Alcohol use; Alcohols; Diet; Diet - adverse effects; Female; Humanities and Social Sciences; Humans; Incidence; Liver; Liver diseases; Liver Diseases, Alcoholic - epidemiology; Liver Diseases, Alcoholic - etiology; Male; Middle Aged; multidisciplinary; Proportional Hazards Models; Prospective Studies; Risk analysis; Risk Factors; Science; Science (multidisciplinary); Statistical models; United Kingdom - epidemiology; United Kingdom
• ISSN: 2041-1723; 2041-1723
• DOI: 10.1038/s41467-024-51314-9

It is elusive why some heavy drinkers progress to severe alcohol-related liver disease (ALD) while others do not. This study aimed to investigate if the association between alcohol consumption and severe ALD is modified by diet. This prospective study included 303,269 UK Biobank participants. Alcohol consumption and diet were self-reported. The diet score was created from 4 items selected using LASSO. Cox proportional hazard model showed that the diet score was monotonically associated with severe ALD risk, adjusted for sociodemographics, lifestyle factors, and alcohol consumption. Relative excess risk due to interaction analysis indicated that having a higher ALD diet score and a higher alcohol consumption simultaneously confers to 2.44 times (95% CI: 1.06-3.83) higher risk than the sum of excess risk of each factor. In this work, we show that people who have a poor diet might be more susceptible to severe ALD due to alcohol consumption. It is elusive why some heavy drinkers progress to severe alcohol-related liver disease (ALD) while others do not. Here we show that people who have a poor diet, as indicated with a data-driven score, might be more susceptible to severe ALD due to alcohol consumption.