Diet, alcohol, or both; what's worst for the liver?
Young, Catherine
Young, Catherine
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Abstract
Now the leading liver disease worldwide, metabolic dysfunction associated steatotic liver disease (MASLD) is a public health crisis. A major concern with MASLD is progression to the more severe metabolic dysfunction associated steatohepatitis (MASH), which significantly increases morbidity and mortality. It is thought for transition to MASH, multiple hepatic injuries must occur. Lifestyle factors are major drivers of liver diseases and multiple harmful lifestyle factors often co-exist. One such common combination is high consumption of the high-fat, high-sugar, low-fiber, ultra-processed Western diet paired with the most common form of immoderate alcohol consumption, binge drinking. Although these two lifestyle factors often accompany each other, little is known about how their co-consumption impacts liver disease progression. As such, we conducted multiple experiments on Western diet and binge drinking with the hypothesis their co-consumption would progress liver disease more than either treatment alone. We randomly divided mice (n=9/sex/group) into 4 groups: 1) Control, 2) Control/Binge, 3) Western, or 4) Western/Binge, where mice co-consumed diet and binge for 6 weeks and then co-consumed diet and binge drinking for an additional 14 weeks for a total of 20 weeks. Measures show Western/Binge mice to have significantly increased liver transaminases compared to their controls indicating potential advanced liver damage. More measures are forthcoming.
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Date
1/1/2026
Student Status
Junior (Graduating in 2027)
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Poster
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Exercise Science
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College of Nursing and Health Sciences
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Life Science