Medicine and Health Sciences Commons^™

Acute Ethanol-Induced Liver Injury Is Prevented By Betaine Administration, Madan Kumar Arumugam, Srinivas Chava, Sathish Kumar Perumal, Matthew C. Paal, Karuna Rasineni, Murali Ganesan, Terrence Donohue, Natalia A. Osna, Kusum K. Kharbanda

Journal Articles: Internal Medicine

Binge drinking is the most common form of excessive alcohol use. Repeated episodes of binge drinking cause multiple organ injuries, including liver damage. We previously demonstrated that chronic ethanol administration causes a decline in the intrahepatic ratio of S-adenosylmethionine (SAM) to S-adenosylhomocysteine (SAH). This decline causes impairments in essential methylation reactions that result in alcohol-induced fatty liver (steatosis) and other features of alcohol-associated liver disease (ALD). Co-treatment with betaine during chronic ethanol feeding, normalizes hepatocellular SAM:SAH ratio and alleviates many features of liver damage including steatosis. Here, we sought to examine whether betaine treatment similarly protects against liver injury in …