Immune aspects of pathogenesis of alcoholic liver disease

摘要

This chapter is a brief review of the main mechanisms of liver injury in alcoholic liver disease (ALD). ALD is a consequence of chronic excessive ethanol intake. This term has different meanings in animal models and in human beings. In humans the excessive ethanol intake is defined as the daily intake of more than 100 g for many years. In animal models the excessive intake is defined as daily intake of more than 10-12 g/kg of body weight, and ethanol must constitute 36% of the total calorie intake. It is important to keep these definitions in mind, our knowledge on ALD is based mainly on experiments with animal models.