Alcohol and the Liver: What Happens During Breakdown and How to Protect Your Liver
Every glass carries a metabolic price. It is paid in acetaldehyde, glutathione, NAD and B vitamins. Here you can see the bill.
I do not moralise about alcohol. I do not find the question of morality particularly interesting either.
What interests me is the bill. Every glass creates work in your liver, and that work is paid for in material. In coenzymes, in glutathione, in B vitamins, in time.
Once you know this bill, you make different decisions. Not out of a guilty conscience, but because you understand what is actually happening.
The evening was lovely. Why does the morning feel so expensive?
You had two, maybe three glasses. Nothing dramatic. No blackout, no drama.
And still: sleep was strange. You woke up at half past four and lay there. In the morning your head feels like cotton wool, concentration only arrives around eleven, and something in you is more irritable than usual.
Most people explain this with the word "hangover" and stop thinking there. That is understandable. But it misses the interesting part.
Because while you were sleeping, a shift was running in your liver that you never ordered. And that shift consumed material.
For the body, alcohol is neither a nutrient nor a poison in the classical sense. It is a work order with the highest priority.
The liver cannot store ethanol and cannot simply excrete it. It has to convert it, immediately, and it pushes other work back to do so. Fat burning, new glucose production, detoxification of other substances. Everything moves one step down the queue.
That is not a weakness of the liver. That is its emergency programme. It is just not built to run several times a week.
And now let us look at how that shift actually runs.
What happens inside the liver cell, step by step
Breaking down alcohol is not a single reaction. There are at least three pathways running in parallel, and they contribute to different degrees depending on drinking habits.
Ethanol becomes acetaldehyde
In the cytosol of the liver cell sits alcohol dehydrogenase, ADH for short. It takes two hydrogen atoms off the ethanol. What remains is acetaldehyde. The hydrogen atoms land on a coenzyme called NAD, which thereby becomes NADH. Let us keep that point in mind, it becomes important in a moment.
Acetaldehyde becomes acetate
Acetaldehyde travels into the mitochondria, the power plants of the cell. There aldehyde dehydrogenase 2, ALDH2 for short, is waiting. It converts acetaldehyde into acetate, in other words acetic acid. Here too, NAD becomes NADH again.
Acetate leaves the liver
Acetate is comparatively harmless. It goes back into the blood and is burned in muscle, heart and other tissues into acetyl-CoA and finally into carbon dioxide and water. The lion's share of the calories from alcohol ends up here.
The second pathway: CYP2E1
With regular consumption, an enzyme in the endoplasmic reticulum is ramped up: cytochrome P450 2E1. It also breaks down ethanol, but with a side effect. In doing so it generates reactive oxygen species. These free radicals are the reason why regular drinking is biochemically something different from occasional drinking.
The third pathway: catalase
In the peroxisomes, catalase can oxidise ethanol with the help of hydrogen peroxide. In humans this pathway is considered quantitatively small, but it is mechanistically interesting because it shows how closely fat breakdown and alcohol breakdown are interlocked.
A research group around Song at the US institute for alcohol research systematically worked through the alcohol-metabolising enzymes. They describe that ADH, ALDH2 and CYP2E1 do not work independently, but influence one another.
Among the observations: ALDH2 can be inhibited in its function by various liver-toxic influences. When that happens, acetaldehyde and reactive fat breakdown products accumulate and can react with DNA, fats and proteins.
For you that means: the bottleneck is rarely at the first step. It is usually at the second, that is, at clearing away the intermediate product.
Song BJ, Akbar M, Jo I et al. Adv Pharmacol. 2015;74:303-372. DOI: 10.1016/bs.apha.2015.04.002Alcohol dehydrogenase is already largely saturated at low blood concentrations. Breakdown therefore runs at an almost constant pace, regardless of how much more you drink. Roughly one standard drink per hour, with large individual variation.
When someone tolerates more over the years, that is often because CYP2E1 has been ramped up. This additional pathway clears more ethanol, but it pays for it with free radicals.
Greater tolerance is therefore not a sign of a more robust liver. It can be a sign that the more expensive breakdown pathway has taken over.
The NAD shift: why alcohol turns into liver fat
Now comes the part I find most fascinating, because it is so elegant and so consequential.
Imagine NAD as trays in a canteen. The kitchen needs empty trays to serve food. NAD is the empty tray. NADH is the full one.
Both alcohol breakdown steps take empty trays and hand back full ones. After two or three glasses, almost all the trays are suddenly full. The ratio of NADH to NAD shifts massively.
What the NADH shift slows down in metabolism
A simplified depiction of the direction, not of the exact magnitude. The bars show which pathways are slowed and which are favoured under an NADH shift.
Fat burning needs free NAD. It comes to a standstill. At the same time, alcohol breakdown produces building blocks from which the liver can build new fats. Together, both lead to fat being deposited in the liver cells.
That is alcoholic fatty liver, medically called steatosis. It does not hurt. It often shows up in no symptom at all. And in most people it is initially reversible.
An international research group around Seitz in Heidelberg compiled the state of knowledge on alcohol-related liver disease for Nature Reviews Disease Primers.
What was observed: most people who drink more than 40 grams of alcohol per day develop an alcoholic fatty liver. Only a portion of them progress to the more severe stages, meaning steatohepatitis, fibrosis and cirrhosis. Which genetic, epigenetic and non-genetic factors decide that is one of the open questions.
For you that means: 40 grams is roughly a litre of beer or half a bottle of wine per day. Fatty liver is the rule, not the exception. What comes after that varies greatly from person to person.
Seitz HK, Bataller R, Cortez-Pinto H et al. Nat Rev Dis Primers. 2018;4(1):16. DOI: 10.1038/s41572-018-0014-7A Chinese research group around Zhang investigated in 2025 how fat breakdown in the peroxisomes and alcohol breakdown are connected.
What was observed in mice: increased peroxisomal fatty acid breakdown supplies hydrogen peroxide, thereby accelerates ethanol oxidation and raises the mitochondrial NADH to NAD ratio. The consequence was slowed mitochondrial fat burning and an accumulation of triglycerides in the liver. Targeted inhibition of the peroxisomal pathway attenuated this fat deposition in fasting mice.
This is an animal model. In humans, this specific connection has not yet been conclusively proven. The direction does fit well with what we know from human physiology.
Zhang Y, Zhang W, Li Y et al. FASEB Bioadv. 2025;7(6):e70013. DOI: 10.1096/fba.2024-00211Fatty liver is not a moral verdict. It is an accounting gap in the coenzyme budget.
And now you know why a fatty liver can develop even though someone hardly eats any fat.
Acetaldehyde: the substance that writes the bill
Ethanol itself is remarkably unreactive. It makes you drunk because it influences nerve cell membranes and receptors. But chemically it is a quiet fellow.
Acetaldehyde is not. Acetaldehyde is an aldehyde, and chemically speaking, aldehydes are Velcro. They bind to things they should not bind to.
What acetaldehyde can get hold of in the cell
- DNA: It forms adducts, meaning chemical attachments to the building blocks of the genetic material. Best described is an adduct on guanine that can disturb DNA replication.
- Proteins: It binds to the amino groups of proteins. If that changes the shape of an enzyme, its function can suffer.
- The repair system of the cell nucleus: Review articles describe that acetaldehyde can inhibit nuclear DNA repair. That is exactly the system that should be clearing the adducts away again.
- DNA methylation: The epigenetic labelling of genes can be disturbed. That is one route by which alcohol may leave traces even without direct DNA damage.
- Vitamin B6 transport: More on that shortly, it deserves its own chapter.
In 2025, Seitz summarised the mechanisms between alcohol and tumours of the digestive tract in Zeitschrift für Gastroenterologie.
Described there: about 4 percent of all cancer cases worldwide are attributed to alcohol consumption. Acetaldehyde binds to DNA and proteins, inhibits oxidative defence and the repair system of the cell nucleus, and disturbs DNA methylation. In addition, reactive oxygen species arise via CYP2E1 and drive fat peroxidation. Its products, such as 4-hydroxynonenal and malondialdehyde, can in turn form DNA adducts. Interesting detail: microbes in the mouth and large intestine also produce acetaldehyde from ethanol.
For you that means: the cancer risk with alcohol is not a vague statistical artefact. There is a nameable chemical chain behind it.
Seitz HK. Z Gastroenterol. 2025;63(9):960-974. DOI: 10.1055/a-2588-6849The flush reaction is a visible lab value
Some people turn bright red after half a glass. Palpitations, a feeling of warmth, sometimes nausea. Among friends, people laugh about it.
Biochemically, it is a finding. These people often carry a variant of the enzyme ALDH2 that works considerably more slowly. The first step runs normally, the second stalls. Acetaldehyde backs up and makes itself noticeable in the skin.
A research group around Brooks at the US alcohol research institute reviewed the evidence on the flush reaction in PLoS Medicine in 2009.
Described there: people with this ALDH2 variant who nevertheless drink alcohol regularly carry a markedly increased risk of squamous cell carcinoma of the oesophagus. The authors argue that the flush reaction is an easily recognisable risk marker that is used far too rarely in counselling.
For you that means: if you turn red after little alcohol, that is a signal you can raise in a conversation with your doctor.
Brooks PJ, Enoch MA, Goldman D et al. PLoS Med. 2009;6(3):e50. DOI: 10.1371/journal.pmed.1000050These gene variants have been studied most often in East Asian populations. They also occur in other populations, but less frequently.
The reverse also holds: anyone who shows no flush reaction has no safety certificate. The bill simply runs more quietly then.
Glutathione: the fire water that gets used up along the way
Glutathione is a small molecule made of three amino acids: glutamate, cysteine and glycine. The bottleneck is almost always the cysteine, because it is the sulphur-containing one.
Think of glutathione as fire water. Wherever reactive oxygen species start small fires, they get put out. Afterwards the glutathione is oxidised and has to be regenerated or built anew.
During alcohol breakdown these fires arise in two places. Via CYP2E1 directly as free radicals. And indirectly via fat peroxidation, whose products are likewise defused via glutathione.
Garcia-Ruiz and Fernandez-Checa in Barcelona studied the mitochondrial glutathione pool over many years and summarised it in a review.
Described there: mitochondria do not produce their own glutathione. They obtain it from the cytosol via a transporter. Under alcohol, the composition of the mitochondrial membrane changes, among other things through cholesterol, and becomes less fluid. Transport suffers, the mitochondrial glutathione pool falls. In models with alcohol-fed animals, this depletion alone was enough to make liver cells sensitive to the inflammatory messenger TNF.
For you that means: what matters is not the total pool in the blood, but where the glutathione sits. That is also the reason why lab values are only of limited use here.
Garcia-Ruiz C, Fernandez-Checa JC. J Gastroenterol Hepatol. 2006;21 Suppl 3:S3-S6. DOI: 10.1111/j.1440-1746.2006.04570.xGlutathione is also the molecule the liver needs in order to catch a reactive intermediate product of paracetamol. This very intermediate arises via CYP2E1, that is, via the enzyme that alcohol upregulates.
In a specialist review, Rumack differentiates: at therapeutic doses he sees no increased risk even with alcohol consumption. With an overdose, by contrast, liver damage can turn out more severe with chronic alcohol consumption. He emphasises that CYP2E1 and glutathione must always be considered together and not separately.
The practical consequence belongs in a conversation with your doctor or your pharmacy. Please do not change dosages on your own.
Many people think of detoxification as something you add. A tea, a powder, a cure.
From the perspective of cell biology, detoxification is above all a material problem. The liver has the tools. What can run out are the consumables: glutathione, sulphur, coenzymes, cofactors.
That is why the more interesting question is not "what do I take in addition", but "what am I currently using up faster than I am resupplying".
If you want to go deeper into this molecule, you will find the detailed account in our article on glutathione as a master antioxidant.
The B vitamin price: B1, B6 and folate
This is where it gets concrete, and this is where I see the biggest gap in the public discussion about alcohol.
A lot is said about liver values and little about the fact that alcohol burdens the household of three B vitamins in quite different ways.
Vitamin B1 · Thiamine
The active form thiamine pyrophosphate is a cofactor for three central enzymes of energy metabolism. Without them, the route from sugar into energy production stalls. With alcohol, several problems come together: lower intake, poorer absorption in the gut, disturbed conversion into the active form and reduced storage in the liver.
Vitamin B6 · Pyridoxal 5-phosphate
The active form is a cofactor for more than a hundred enzymes, among them many in amino acid and neurotransmitter metabolism. Acetaldehyde can displace it from its protein binding. Unbound, it is broken down faster.
Folate · Vitamin B9
Central for methylation, that is, for DNA synthesis, DNA stability and epigenetic regulation. Alcohol acts here at four points at once: less intake, poorer absorption, reduced storage in the liver, increased excretion via the urine.
Zinc
Not a B vitamin, but it belongs in the same bill. In advanced alcohol-related liver disease the zinc balance is regularly disturbed, among other things through lower intake, poorer absorption, increased excretion and altered transporters.
In 1978, Lumeng published a series of laboratory experiments in the Journal of Clinical Investigation that still provide the standard explanation today.
What was observed: when acetaldehyde breakdown was inhibited, the pyridoxal 5-phosphate content in isolated liver cells fell by about 40 percent within 80 minutes. In dialysis experiments, acetaldehyde displaced the bound pyridoxal 5-phosphate from its binding proteins. In the presence of alkaline phosphatase, that accelerated its breakdown.
These are cell and tissue experiments, not a human study. They do, however, explain very plausibly why vitamin B6 comes out so reliably low with heavy alcohol consumption.
Lumeng L. J Clin Invest. 1978;62(2):286-293. DOI: 10.1172/JCI109128Medici and Halsted at the University of California Davis worked through the connection between folate, alcohol and liver disease.
Described there: alcohol-related liver disease typically goes along with folate deficiency. It arises through lower intake, malabsorption in the gut, reduced uptake and storage in the liver and increased excretion via the urine. The deficiency interferes with methionine metabolism, with consequences for DNA synthesis, DNA stability and the epigenetic control of genes involved in liver damage.
For you that means: folate is no side detail in this topic. It sits at the interface between nutrient balance and the mechanisms through which alcohol leaves traces in the long run.
Medici V, Halsted CH. Mol Nutr Food Res. 2013;57(4):596-606. DOI: 10.1002/mnfr.201200077A pronounced thiamine deficiency can lead to Wernicke encephalopathy, a neurological emergency with confusion, unsteady gait and eye muscle disturbances. Review articles emphasise that this picture is often recognised too late because it overlaps with other neurological conditions.
This is not a topic for self-treatment. Anyone who notices such symptoms, in themselves or in others, belongs in medical care without delay.
And now you know why, with alcohol, it is not only the liver values that are interesting, but also B1, B6, folate and zinc.
The hangover: what the data give us and what they do not
Now I have to qualify a widespread explanation that I myself long found convenient.
The story goes like this: the hangover is acetaldehyde. Full stop. It is catchy, it fits the biochemistry, and according to current data it is too simple.
A research group around Mackus at the University of Utrecht reviewed the studies on alcohol metabolism and hangover severity.
What was observed: blood ethanol concentration was directly related to hangover severity, whereas the acetaldehyde level was not to a statistically meaningful degree. People who broke down ethanol faster had milder hangovers. One possible explanation from the authors: ethanol crosses the blood-brain barrier, acetaldehyde essentially does not. For the markers of oxidative stress the picture was split: early values were negatively related to hangover severity, later values positively.
For you that means: a hangover is not one single toxin. It looks more like a sum of metabolic load, inflammatory signals and disturbed sleep.
Mackus M, van de Loo AJ, Garssen J et al. J Clin Med. 2020;9(11):3421. DOI: 10.3390/jcm9113421A group around Palmer at Imperial College London set animal and human studies on the hangover side by side.
As the most likely contributors they name: the breakdown products of alcohol, changes in messenger substances in the brain with a particular eye on glutamate, inflammatory factors and mitochondrial dysfunction. They openly criticise that many hangover studies are methodologically weak, with differing amounts, time windows and measurement methods.
For you that means: if someone sells you a simple hangover formula, healthy scepticism is in order. Towards me as well.
Palmer E, Tyacke R, Sastre M et al. Alcohol Alcohol. 2019;54(3):196-203. DOI: 10.1093/alcalc/agz016The underestimated part: sleep
Many people drink in the evening because they fall asleep faster. That is even true. It is just half the story.
Ebrahim and colleagues reviewed all known investigations into alcohol and night-time sleep in healthy people.
What was observed across all dosages: shorter time to fall asleep, a more stable first half of the night and more sleep interruptions in the second half. The onset of the first REM phase was clearly delayed at all dosages. At medium and high amounts, the REM share across the whole night fell. Deep sleep in the first half of the night increased in the majority of studies.
For you that means: waking up at half past four is neither coincidence nor weakness. It is a well documented shift in sleep architecture.
Ebrahim IO, Shapiro CM, Williams AJ, Fenwick PB. Alcohol Clin Exp Res. 2013;37(4):539-549. DOI: 10.1111/acer.12006A hangover is rarely a single cause. It looks more like a bottleneck in several places at once: a shifted coenzyme budget, consumed glutathione, an irritated immune system, fragmented sleep, fluid and electrolyte shifts.
That is also why no single trick works reliably. If you top up in one place while something is missing in four others, you notice little of it.
Who should look particularly closely here
Up to this point I have been talking about averages. Now it gets personal, because on this topic the differences between people are enormous.
Situations that belong in medical care
- Pregnancy and wanting to conceive: For alcohol in pregnancy, no harmless amount is known. This is not an area for your own weighing up, it belongs in medical care.
- Alcohol dependence or a suspicion of it: Withdrawal can become physically dangerous. Anyone who suspects they are dependent should not stop on their own, but get medical support. That is not a sign of weakness, but of prudence.
- Existing liver disease: Fatty liver, hepatitis, fibrosis or elevated liver values change the whole calculation. This needs individual assessment.
- Regular medication: Many active substances are metabolised via the same enzyme systems. Interactions belong in the pharmacy or the consulting room, not on the internet.
- A pronounced flush reaction: A sign of a slower ALDH2 variant, which you can raise in a conversation with your doctor.
The World Health Organization took a position on this in Lancet Public Health in 2023. Its core statement: for cancer risk, no threshold can be given below which the risk demonstrably falls away.
A population-based analysis by the International Agency for Research on Cancer for the year 2020 arrived at an estimated 741,300 new cancer cases worldwide attributed to alcohol consumption, that is 4.1 percent of all new cases. Most of them affected the oesophagus, the liver and the breast. Moderate consumption below 20 grams per day accounted for about 103,100 cases.
For you that does not mean every glass makes you ill. It means: there is no range that can honestly be called protected.
Anderson BO, Berdzuli N, Ilbawi A et al. Lancet Public Health. 2023;8(1):e6-e7. DOI: 10.1016/S2468-2667(22)00317-6 · Rumgay H et al. Lancet Oncol. 2021;22(8):1071-1080. DOI: 10.1016/S1470-2045(21)00279-5I do not tell anyone that they may never drink a glass of wine again. That would be presumptuous and unrealistic in most people's lives.
What I consider honest: lay the bill open, do not talk the risk curve prettier than it is, and then look together at where your personal point lies. Between "never again" and "who cares" there are a great many possibilities.
What you can do in practical terms
Three levers, no more. Everything else is cosmetics as long as these three are not in place.
Lever 1: Reduce the amount, counted in days
Not in good intentions, but in calendar weeks. How many days per week are alcohol-free? That is a number you can answer tomorrow.
The reason is the kinetics. The liver works at an almost constant pace. So what counts is not only the total amount, but also how much recovery time lies between the loads.
A group around Mehta at University College London followed people who had committed to a month off alcohol and compared them with people who kept drinking.
What was observed in the abstinence group of 94 participants, with a baseline consumption of 258 grams per week on average: the HOMA index as a measure of insulin resistance fell by 25.9 percent, systolic blood pressure by 6.6 percent, body weight by 1.5 percent. Two cancer-associated growth factors fell by 41.8 and 73.9 percent. In the control group of 47 participants nothing meaningful changed. The changes did not hang on diet, exercise or smoking.
For you that means: this is an observational study without random allocation, so not proof of causality. But the magnitude and the speed are remarkable.
Mehta G, Macdonald S, Cronberg A et al. BMJ Open. 2018;8(5):e020673. DOI: 10.1136/bmjopen-2017-020673Lever 2: Take the nutrient basis seriously, without treating it as a free pass
If alcohol burdens B1, B6, folate and zinc and consumes glutathione, then it makes sense not to live carelessly in exactly those areas.
Concretely that means: vegetables and legumes for folate. Eggs, meat and legumes as sources of sulphur-containing amino acids from which the body can build glutathione. Wholegrains and legumes for thiamine. And if a relevant deficiency is suspected, a laboratory measurement instead of guesswork.
I deliberately do not name dosages here. They depend on baseline values, kidney function, medication and goal, and they belong in individual advice.
Medici and colleagues tested S-adenosylmethionine, a substance that helps regulate glutathione formation, in a double-blind study over 24 weeks in people with alcohol-related liver disease.
What was observed: the liver values AST, ALT and bilirubin improved in the group as a whole over the 24 weeks. Between verum and placebo, however, there was no difference, neither in the laboratory values nor in the liver tissue examination. The authors attribute the improvement to the required abstinence.
For you that means: nutrient supply may support metabolism. But it cannot replace what arises from leaving things out. There is no indulgence trade here.
Medici V, Virata MC, Peerson JM et al. Alcohol Clin Exp Res. 2011;35(11):1960-1965. DOI: 10.1111/j.1530-0277.2011.01547.xLever 3: Change the context, not just the willpower
Two small adjustments that in practice often achieve more than grand resolutions.
First: on an empty stomach the blood alcohol curve rises more steeply. A meal with protein and fibre beforehand makes the curve flatter. That does not change the total amount that has to be broken down, but it does change the peak concentration.
Second: the last drink shifts sleep the most. If you drink, then rather earlier in the evening than late. The data on sleep architecture suggest that the second half of the night pays the price.
This is not a discussion about pleasure. It is a discussion about capacity.
Your liver does roughly five hundred things at the same time. Breaking down hormones, building proteins, regulating sugar, converting medication, processing immune signals. Alcohol breakdown pushes itself to the front of that list.
Energy and clarity in the morning are not a luxury. They are the visible side of free capacity. And capacity is what you get back when you give your liver fewer extra shifts.
And now you know why, with alcohol, it is not only about liver values, but about the whole nutrient and coenzyme budget behind them.
Frequently asked questions
How long does the liver need to break down one drink?
Why is acetaldehyde such a problem?
Why does alcohol lead to a fatty liver?
Does alcohol really use up glutathione?
Which vitamins does alcohol cost the most?
Is a hangover simply acetaldehyde?
What does a flush reaction after alcohol mean?
Can I keep drinking if I take supplements?
Is there a harmless amount of alcohol?
What does an alcohol-free month achieve?
Is beer better for the liver than spirits?
Can a fatty liver regress?
Related topics from other areas
Alcohol touches several systems at once. These articles from other clusters follow up the adjacent questions.
Alcohol and the gut
Barrier, microbiome and what happens even at small amounts
Gut reset
How gut health co-determines the load on the liver
Heavy metals
A second large consumer of glutathione and sulphur
Burnout
When exhaustion has several causes at the same time
Sources
All statements were checked against abstracts and citation data. The markers in square brackets indicate the level of evidence. Mechanistic statements on mitochondrial glutathione and on peroxisomal beta-oxidation rest largely on cell and animal models. They are biologically plausible, but not documented in humans with the same certainty as through large randomised trials.
- Seitz HK, Bataller R, Cortez-Pinto H et al. Alcoholic liver disease. Nat Rev Dis Primers. 2018;4(1):16. DOI: 10.1038/s41572-018-0014-7 [Review article]
- Seitz HK. A narrative review on alcohol and alimentary tract cancer with special emphasis on acetaldehyde and oxidative stress. Z Gastroenterol. 2025;63(9):960-974. DOI: 10.1055/a-2588-6849 [Review article]
- Rumgay H, Shield K, Charvat H et al. Global burden of cancer in 2020 attributable to alcohol consumption: a population-based study. Lancet Oncol. 2021;22(8):1071-1080. DOI: 10.1016/S1470-2045(21)00279-5 [Real-world, population-based]
- Anderson BO, Berdzuli N, Ilbawi A et al. Health and cancer risks associated with low levels of alcohol consumption. Lancet Public Health. 2023;8(1):e6-e7. DOI: 10.1016/S2468-2667(22)00317-6 [Official document, WHO]
- Song BJ, Akbar M, Jo I et al. Translational implications of the alcohol-metabolizing enzymes, including cytochrome P450-2E1, in alcoholic and nonalcoholic liver disease. Adv Pharmacol. 2015;74:303-372. DOI: 10.1016/bs.apha.2015.04.002 [Mechanism review]
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- Ebrahim IO, Shapiro CM, Williams AJ, Fenwick PB. Alcohol and sleep I: effects on normal sleep. Alcohol Clin Exp Res. 2013;37(4):539-549. DOI: 10.1111/acer.12006 [Review article]
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- Medici V, Virata MC, Peerson JM et al. S-adenosyl-L-methionine treatment for alcoholic liver disease: a double-blinded, randomized, placebo-controlled trial. Alcohol Clin Exp Res. 2011;35(11):1960-1965. DOI: 10.1111/j.1530-0277.2011.01547.x [RCT, double-blind, n=37]
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This article is for information and does not replace medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. In pregnancy, with existing liver disease, with regular medication use or where alcohol dependence is suspected, the assessment belongs in medical hands.