Alcohol itself can directly damage liver cells. Now researchers at University of California, San Diego School of Medicine report evidence that alcohol is also harmful to the liver for a second reason — it allows gut bacteria to migrate to the liver, promoting alcohol-induced liver disease. The study, conducted in mice and in laboratory samples, is published February 10 in Cell Host & Microbe. Alcohol appears to impair the body’s ability to keep microbes in check. When those barriers breakdown, bacteria that don’t normally colonize the liver end up there, and now we’ve found that this bacterial migration promotes alcohol liver disease.
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