Dietary supplementation in patients with alcoholic liver disease：a review on current evidence

摘要

BACKGROUND: Alcoholic liver disease (ALD) is one of the main causes of liver disease worldwide. Although the patho-genesis of ALD has not yet been well elucidated, the oxidative metabolites of ethanol such as acetaldehyde and reactive oxy-gen species play a pivotal role in the clinical and pathological spectrum of the disease. This review summarizes the existing evidences on dietary supplements considered to have antioxi-dant, and/or anti-inlfammatory properties, and their role in the management of ALD and the proposed mechanisms. n DATA SOURCES: The present study reviewed all studies pub-lished in PubMed, ScienceDirect and Scopus, from 1959 to 2015, indicating the role of different dietary supplementation in attenuation of many pathophysiological processes involved in development and progression of ALD. Full-texts of citations were used except for those that were published in languages other than English. n RESULTS: Signiifcant progress has been made to understand the key events and molecular players for the onset and pro-gression of ALD from both experimental and clinical studies;however, there is no successful treatment currently available. The present review discussed the role of a variety of dietary supplements (e.g. vitamin A, carotenoids, vitamins B3, C and E, in addition to antioxidants and anti-inlfammatory agents) in treating ALD. It has been shown that supplementation with some carotenoids, vitamin B3, vitamin C, silymarin, curcumin, probiotics, zinc, S-adenosylmethionine and garlic may have potential beneifcial effects in animal models of ALD; however, the number of clinical studies is very limited. In addition, sup-plementation should be accompanied with alcohol cessation. n CONCLUSIONS: Since oxidative stress and inlfammation are involved in the pathogenesis of ALD, dietary supplements that can modulate these pathologies could be useful in the treat-ment of ALD. In addition to alcohol cessation, these supple-ments have shown beneifcial effects on animal models of ALD. Clinical trials are needed to validate the beneifciary role of these supplements in patients with ALD.