Alcohol and Your Kidney Health: Heres What to Know

Interestingly, some studies suggest that light-to-moderate drinking may lower T2D risk, but heavy alcohol use increases liver damage and metabolic dysfunction through impaired insulin signaling, oxidative stress, and dysregulated cellular pathways. Other studies found that alcohol combined with energy drinks, caffeine, or soft drinks can disturb the physiological redox reaction and cause lipoperoxidation in the liver and nephrotoxicity 30,118. Furthermore, drinkers often like to eat more pickled food and eat less vegetables and fruits, which increases the consumption of salt and cholesterol 119. Hu et al. found that people who consume high levels of alcohol may have poorer-quality diets than never drinkers and light-to-moderate drinkers; however, the protective effects of alcohol consumption are not offset by their unhealthy diets 83. A relatively low incidence of cardiovascular disease was found in middle-aged French men, despite a relatively high dietary intake of saturated fats.

Factors Modifying the Alcohol Elimination Rate

• A recent meta-analysis (Cheungpasitporn et al. 2015) found little support for such a relationship.
• Uncoupling eventually leads to generation of damaging ROS like superoxide anion, instead of the vasorelaxant nitric oxide that maintains normal blood flow in the kidney.
• Unfortunately, we only know that low-concentration ethanol can improve renal antioxidant capacity, but the exact dose and period are still unclear.
• For example, as described in the previous section, lipid peroxidation leads to the generation of MDA and HNE.
• If you’re currently taking medications for kidney cancer or are having surgery to remove a kidney (nephrectomy), talk with your doctor about how much alcohol is safe to have during treatment.

Along with oxidative stress, increasing evidence suggests that some nonoxidative mechanisms also factor into alcohol-related organ damage. Specifically, ethanol metabolism produces fatty acid ethyl esters in various organs (Laposata and Lange 1986), which can cause ethanol-induced organ damage. Calabrese and Rizza (1999) found that ethanol induced a significant increase in the levels of fatty acid ethyl esters. They measured the highest levels in the heart, followed by kidney, brain, and liver. In turn, heavy alcohol consumption is implicated in the development of these cardiac diseases, with chronic, heavy drinkers at higher risk than those who consume small to moderate amounts of alcohol.

Ensuring no one faces kidney disease alone

The impact of alcohol metabolism on other liver metabolic pathways, and on cytochrome P450-dependent metabolism of xenobiotics and drugs will be briefly described. Factors playing a role in the metabolic adaptation i.e., increased rate of ethanol metabolism by chronic alcoholics will be discussed. The is alcohol processed by the kidneys metabolism and role of acetaldehyde in the toxic actions of alcohol and ethanol drinking behavior will be discussed. Free radicals (also called reactive oxygen species ROS) are one of the by-products of alcohol metabolism and are known to cause cellular damage, unless the body can use antioxidants to clean them up. Oxidative stress occurs when the body cannot detoxify free radicals as fast as they are being produced, and it is pivotal in triggering alcohol-related tissue injury.

What affects the rate that alcohol is processed?

Ethanol distributes from the blood into all tissues and fluids in proportion to their relative content of water. The concentration of ethanol in a tissue is dependent on the relative water content of the tissue, and reaches equilibrium quickly with the concentration of ethanol in the plasma. Chemicals called enzymes help to break apart the ethanol molecule into other compounds (or metabolites), which can be processed more easily by the body. Some of these intermediate metabolites can have harmful effects on the body. But alcohol can also harm other body organs which can impair renal function.

Kidney Diseases and AUD: Lessons From Epidemiology

• Moreover, many patients were excluded from the long-term observational studies because they did not attend routine annual health checkups.
• One of the reasons for this sex difference might be the different pharmacokinetics of ethyl alcohol between men and women.
• As a consequence, oxidative stress not only propagates kidney failure, but it also contributes to the progression of chronic heart failure (Pacher et al. 2005) and leads to a vicious cycle in alcohol-induced cardiovascular complications.
• Secondly, the microsomal ethanol oxidising system is brought into play; this is dependent on cytochrome P450, which is normally responsible for drug metabolism, and other cofactors.
• Because of its inducibility, CYP2E1 may play an important role in alcohol metabolism after chronic ethanol consumption, i.e. in alcoholics.

This type of sudden-onset kidney damage often resolves with time, but it can be lasting in some cases. Because polymorphisms of ADH and ALDH2 play an important role in determining peak blood acetaldehyde levels and voluntary ethanol consumption (Quintanilla et al. 2005), they also influence vulnerability to alcohol dependence. A fast ADH or a slow ALDH are expected to elevate acetaldehyde levels and thus reduce alcohol drinking.

Distribution of Alcohol in the Body

• Shuttle capacity may become limiting under fasting metabolic states as the levels of shuttle components decrease.
• Many studies have shown that alcohol consumption is related to cardiovascular disease, urinary protein, and CKD 3,6,16,45,66–69.
• As the kidneys become overworked from heavy alcohol consumption, they will be less able to filter blood and maintain the correct water balance in the body.
• Alcohol enters the fetus readily through the placenta and is eliminated by maternal metabolism.
• If you are being treated for a kidney-specific condition, please talk to your doctor about your alcohol intake.

The mRNA product produced by the ADH6 gene is present in liver and stomach, but the protein has not been characterized. Whereas AKI tends to resolve with time, CKD may worsen over time — although some individuals are able to stay relatively stable with CKD with close monitoring and lifestyle changes, such as quitting alcohol. Alcohol is a toxic substance that can cause dependence and other negative health effects. People with alcohol-induced CKD will require treatment for AUD as well as CKD. Sometimes, AKI can resolve over time if a person makes sure to stay hydrated.

Alcohol intake and the risk of chronic kidney disease: results from a systematic review and dose–response meta-analysis

All that chugging a lot of water does is increase the volume of urine that you excrete, according to Stanley Goldfarb, a kidney expert at the University of Pennsylvania. The kidney is a complex filter, “and how much water you drink does not affect how well this filter works,” Goldfarb says. Kidneys are not our most glamorous organs, often taking a back seat in the news to the brain or the heart. Probably the only time we think about our kidneys is when we joke about selling one to afford the newest Apple gadget.