Author: Gary Jackson

Impact of Alcohol Abuse on the Adaptive Immune System

CAMP has multiple regulatory functions in the cell, and increased cAMP levels can stimulate DNA fragmentation, leading to thymocyte apoptosis (McConkey et al. 1990). Finally, exposure to ethanol concentrations of 0.4 to 2 percent had a more profound effect on apoptosis of cultured thymocytes than on mature T cells (Slukvin and Jerrells 1995). All of these studies demonstrate that ethanol interferes with normal thymocyte function and maturation into T cells in a variety of ways.

Impact of AUD on B cells

Alcohol has been flying off the shelves as people try to combat boredom during lockdown, with some reports estimating that alcoholic beverage sales surged by 55 percent toward the end of March. Even drinking a little too much (binge drinking) on occasion can set off a chain reaction that affects your well-being. Lowered inhibitions can lead to poor choices with lasting repercussions — like the end of a relationship, an accident or legal woes. Each of those consequences can cause turmoil that can negatively affect your long-term emotional health. But prolonged alcohol abuse can lead to chronic (long-term) pancreatitis, which can be severe.

Effects of alcohol on adaptive immunity

Mendelian randomization (MR) is a novel statistical approach that uses genetic variants (instrumental variables, IVs; usually single-nucleotide polymorphisms, SNPs) as proxies to make causal inference between exposure(s) and outcome(s). Since genotypes are randomly assigned at conception and always precede disease onset, MR mirrors the randomization process in controlled trials and is less susceptible to confounding and reverse causality (Smith and Ebrahim, 2003). The ability of alcohol to alter both innate and adaptive immune defenses inevitably impacts how the immune system of even a moderate alcohol drinker can respond to infections. In fact, alcohol use has been shown to increase the susceptibility of drinkers to both bacterial and viral infections, as well as advance the progression of several chronic viral infections, including human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) and hepatitis C. In addition to pneumonia, alcohol consumption has been linked to pulmonary diseases, including tuberculosis, respiratory syncytial virus, and ARDS. Alcohol disrupts ciliary function in the upper airways, impairs the function of immune cells (i.e., alveolar macrophages and neutrophils), and weakens the barrier function of the epithelia in the lower airways (see the article by Simet and Sisson).

What Does Alcohol Do to Your Body? 9 Ways Alcohol Affects Your Health

  1. We employed a weighted median to provide consistent estimates even when up to 50% of the analyzed genetic variants are invalid (Bowden et al., 2016).
  2. After this period, the moderate-drinking participants exhibited down-regulation of a transcription factor (i.e., NF-Kappa B), modulation of pathways of antigen presentation, altered B- and T-cell receptor signaling, and reduced IL-15.
  3. These disruptions to the composition of the gut microbiota and to gut barrier function have important implications beyond the intestinal system.
  4. One study found that people who got less than 7 hours of sleep were nearly three times more likely to develop a cold compared with those who got 8 or more hours of sleep.

In contrast, the ethanol-consuming mice exhibited no change in the frequency of certain circulating lymphocytes (i.e., CD3 cells) after LPS injection, suggesting that chronic alcohol consumption may potentially impair the ability of lymphocytes to migrate out of circulation (Percival and Sims 2000). One potential explanation for the lack of detrimental effects of wine in this experiment could be the presence of phytochemicals in wine that may be able to overcome ethanol’s harmful impact on immunity. Because alcoholics are at increased risk for hepatitis B (HepB) infections, immunization with a HepB vaccine is recommended.

Gut health

It has been argued that the validity of findings from observational studies could be plagued by measurement error, confounding, and/or reverse causality. Numerous analyses also have evaluated the effects of ethanol exposure on the development of B cells. As described above for thymopoiesis, the offspring of pregnant mice that from gestational day 1 to day 18 consumed a liquid diet in which 25 percent of calories were derived from ethanol exhibited decreased numbers of both immature and mature B cells in the spleens directly after birth.

For example, alcohol can reduce the ability of respiratory epithelium cells to remove mucous from the lungs, which can directly damage lung tissue and weaken the proper functioning of the lungs over time. Although this chronic weakening of lung function may not cause any immediate symptoms, these effects can manifest when a severe respiratory infection occurs. “Alcohol has diverse adverse effects throughout the body, including on all cells of the immune system, that lead to increased risk of serious infections,” said Dr. E. Jennifer Edelman, a Yale Medicine addiction medicine specialist. T-cell activation was assessed by measuring the expression of human leukocyte antigen (HLA)-DR on the patient’s CD8 cells. HLAs are proteins found on the surface of various cells that present antigens to the TCR on T cells to induce an immune response.

Alcohol exposure, and particularly chronic heavy drinking, affects all components of the adaptive immune system. Studies both in humans and in animal models determined that chronic alcohol abuse reduces the number of peripheral T cells, disrupts the balance between different T-cell types, influences T-cell activation, impairs T-cell functioning, and promotes T-cell apoptosis. Chronic alcohol exposure also seems to cause loss of peripheral B cells, while simultaneously inducing increased production of immunoglobulins. In particular, the levels of antibodies against liver-specific autoantigens are increased in patients with alcoholic liver disease and may promote alcohol-related liver damage. Finally, chronic alcohol exposure in utero interferes with normal T-cell and B-cell development, which may increase the risk of infections during both childhood and adulthood.

National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA)

Having a glass of wine with dinner or a beer at a party here and there isn’t going to destroy your gut. But even low amounts of daily drinking and prolonged and heavy use of alcohol can lead to significant problems for your digestive system. Eventually, you can develop permanent and irreversible scarring in your liver, which is called cirrhosis. For more information about alcohol’s effects on the body, please visit the Interactive Body feature on NIAAA’s College Drinking Prevention website.

Effects on Circulating Immunoglobulin Levels

Another aspect of cell-mediated immunity that is affected by ethanol consumption is the delayed-type hypersensitivity (DTH) response. DTH refers to a cutaneous T-cell–mediated inflammatory reaction that takes 2 to 3 days to develop. One early study (Lundy et al. 1975) showed defects in cell-mediated immunity in male alcoholic patients admitted for detoxification, in response both to a new antigen and to an antigen to which they had previously been exposed. A more recent study (Smith et al. 2004) reported that a negative correlation existed between the amount of alcohol consumed by the participants and the size of DTH skin test responses to a specific antigen (i.e., keyhole limpet hemocyanin). For instance, genetically modified BALB/c mice that carried a TCR specific for the ovalbumin peptide and were fed a diet containing 30 percent ethanol-derived calories exhibited decreased antigen-specific Th1 responses (Waltenbaugh et al. 1998). Similarly, C57BL6 mice fed a liquid diet in which ethanol provided 27 percent of the total calories generated significantly decreased DTH responses to a T-cell–dependent antigen (i.e., sheep red blood cells) (Jayasinghe et al. 1992).