Scientists from the Max Planck Institute (MPI) of Biochemistry and elsewhere found that two or three drinks every day could put your liver in danger.
They developed a revolutionary tool to predict whether a person has alcohol-related liver disease and if an individual patient is at risk of disease progression.
In comparison to the current state-of-the-art clinical tests, this tool is non-invasive and just as accurate, if not superior.
A whopping 25 percent of the world’s population lives with fatty liver disease, a condition caused by the storage of extra fat in the liver.
In fact, two to three alcoholic beverages a day can put your liver in danger.
While this does not necessarily affect your health, the fatty liver does indeed put you at risk of developing severe liver diseases, such as cirrhosis, over time.
In the study, the researchers developed a new diagnostic tool to predict whether an individual has fatty liver disease and if a patient is at further risk of disease progression.
In the study, the researchers were able to identify hundreds of proteins from each blood sample of the patients.
The blood samples were analyzed using a mass spectrometer, a type of very advanced weighing scale, that measures molecules with extreme precision.
After identifying and measuring the proteome (total of the proteins in the sample), they used machine learning to find proteins related to the presence of different forms of liver damage.
The team identified three panels of biomarkers that can detect significant fibrosis, mild inflammatory activity, and any steatosis, all of which are different ways the disease can manifest itself in the tissue.
In short, these biomarkers are what the researchers were looking for in the blood samples, as they can detect any of the above-mentioned liver injuries and help predict if a patient is at risk of disease progression.
By using a simple blood sample, the researchers were able to predict the patient’s risk of alcohol-related liver disease, which affects six percent of the general population.
If you care about liver disease, please read studies about how to reverse type 2 diabetes and deadly liver disease, and this green diet may strongly lower non-alcoholic fatty liver disease.
For more information about liver health, please see recent studies about a new therapy for fatty liver disease, and results showing how sugary beverages affect the liver.
The research was published in Nature Medicine and conducted by Professor Matthias Mann et al.
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