If a drinker stops drinking, does their liver improve?

[Renee]

When a smoker stops smoking, after a while their lungs return to a normal, healthy state. What about heavy drinkers? If someone drank a lot during a period of his or her life, but stopped later, will the liver recover like the lungs do?

BTW, not seeking medical advice, just curious.

[Qadgop_the_Mercotan]

If the liver is merely inflamed (hepatitis) by alcohol, then removing the alcohol will allow the liver to return to normal.

But if scarring (cirrhosis) is already present, this is permanent. About 20% of folks with alcoholic hepatitis do develop cirrhosis.

Of course, stopping the drinking will prevent further scarring (which is very important to prevent), but the livers will not return to normal in cases where there is already scarring.

BTW, lungs won’t necessarily return to a normal state after a person stops smoking. Changes of emphysema will persist, as this breakdown in lung tissue, due mainly to smoking, is not reversible. But the rate of further decline will slow once the person quits.

[Khadaji]

thanks for the report. I have always heard that the liver is the one organ in the human body that will regenerate itself - I’ve always wondered if this were true.

[Phlosphr]

One’s personal and mental state generally improve as well. Clarity of thinking, personal interactions etc…etc… The benefits are many.

[clairobscur]

@Renee

When a smoker stops smoking, after a while their lungs return to a normal, healthy state.

I don’t think so. The capacity of the lungs (not sure about the correct term in English) stays impaired and the gap between the non smoker and the former smoker, IIRC the graphs I’ve seen, widen with time (I mean that if one quit at 35, the difference with the non-smoker will be slight at 40 but more important at say, 65). And, still assuming I correctly remember the graphs, the permanent impairment is quite significant for persons who quit after 40 or so.

[si_blakely]

@Khadaji

thanks for the report. I have always heard that the liver is the one organ in the human body that will regenerate itself - I’ve always wondered if this were true.

The liver can regenerate - up to 60% can be removed (as in adult-to-adult donation) from a healthy individual. However, cirrhosis scarring is not the same as actual removal - it is non-functioning tissue that forms part of the liver, and does not get replaced by functional liver tissue over time. And the cirrhosis is distributed, so surgical removal of the cirrhosis is not an option.

I seem to recall some recent work on recovering liver function in cirrhosis using some drug or other - in mice

Ahh, from here but you may need registration

@New Scientist

There is cause for optimism, though. Until recently it was thought that scarring, or fibrosis, was irreversible. Then John Iredale of the University of Southampton, UK, found that if a liver is still reasonably healthy the scars will gradually disappear if you remove the cause of the damage. What happens, his team showed in 1998, is that in the absence of signals from immune cells, the fibre-producing stellate cells self-destruct and the surrounding hepatocytes divide to fill the gaps.

What this means is that most people with early-stage disease could turn it around by themselves. “If you stop the underlying process - for example, if you’re an alcoholic and you stop drinking, or have obesity-related disease and you lose weight - then the body naturally has the capacity to break down the scars of cirrhosis,” says Jones. The formula is familiar - eat healthily and take more exercise.

Note that this is early stage liver disease, at the point that you have no idea that your liver is being damaged. If you are diagnosed with end-stage liver disease (the point most people get picked up, when they have a GI bleed or turn yellow), you are probably too far gone.

@New Scientist

As soon as it was discovered that fibrosis can be reversed, the hunt was on for a drug that would block the signals that keep the stellate cells alive, the idea being to accelerate the healing process. A drug called sulphasalazine, used since the 1950s to treat inflammatory conditions such as rheumatoid arthritis, was already known to inhibit one of the chemical signals that promote scarring. In 2005, a team led by Mann, then at the University of Southampton, UK, tested the drug on rats with liver fibrosis and discovered that just a single dose accelerated the animals’ recovery (Gastroenterology, vol 128, p 108).

A small-scale trial of sulphasalazine for liver disease is now being planned in Southampton. Around 20 patients with alcoholic liver cirrhosis who have stopped drinking will be given sulphasalazine and have their progress monitored. “It will simply be a quick check to see it doesn’t make them any worse, and if it makes them better then, bingo!” enthuses Mann.

Sorry, rats.

So, stopping heavy drinking or overeating during early stage liver disease can lead to recovery of function, but only then.

Si - who sees the consultant on monday to get the results of a liver biopsy and decide on treatment of chronic hepatitis-B viral infection.

[Khadaji]

@si_blakely

<SNIP>
Si - who sees the consultant on monday to get the results of a liver biopsy and decide on treatment of chronic hepatitis-B viral infection.

Good luck!

[bordelond]

@si_blakely

from New Scientist:
What this means is that most people with early-stage disease could turn it around by themselves. “If you stop the underlying process - for example, if you’re an alcoholic and you stop drinking, or have obesity-related disease and you lose weight - then the body naturally has the capacity to break down the scars of cirrhosis,” says Jones. The formula is familiar - eat healthily and take more exercise.

Waitaminnit – obesity and cirrhosis are positively correlated? Has causation been estalished, or is it indeterminate from the current state of research?

That’s an angle against obesity I’ve not seen pursued. First time hearing of it, actually. Good find, si_blakely.

[si_blakely]

@bordelond

Waitaminnit – obesity and cirrhosis are positively correlated? Has causation been estalished, or is it indeterminate from the current state of research?

That’s an angle against obesity I’ve not seen pursued. First time hearing of it, actually. Good find, si_blakely.

Obese people can get fatty liver disease. The liver processes dietary fat. If it gets overloaded, the fat gets stored and retained in cells in the liver. These cells then cannot continue to function as liver cells, in the same way that the scarring of cirrhosis does not function within the liver. Get too many of these, and your liver function decreases, same as with cirrhosis.

So the two (cirrhosis and fatty liver disease) are not the same, but the effects are the same - subtle liver function degradation until it is very late in the day.

Si

[si_blakely]

And just to clarify - cirrhosis is any scarring of the liver that reduces function, and can be caused by alcoholic consumption, fatty liver disease, viral or bacterial hepatitis or a bunch of other things.

Fairly obviously, I have a considerable interest in the function and diseases of the liver (well, mine particularly).

Si