Dietary fatty acids and the pathogenesis of liver disease in alcoholism

The purpose of this review is to bring together information on the role of fatty acids in alcoholic liver disease (ALD). Quite apart from the effects of fatty acids on liver disease, fatty acids are important precursors of prostaglandins (PGs), leukotrienes (LTs), and hydroxyl fatty acids. There is considerable evidence that the amount of fat in the diet is a key determinant of lesions in ALD (Nanji, 2003). Furthermore, dietary lipids are a key source of lipids accumulating in livers of ethanol-fed animals (Nanji and French, 1986). Findings of initial studies on the Lieber-DeCarli model showed a steatogenic effect of dietary fat in ALD (Nanji, 2003). Results of studies on the intragastric feeding rat model revealed that when fat constituted 5% of calories, focal necrosis and steatosis were induced in the centrilobular areas of ethanol-fed rats. When experiments on intragastrically fed rats were conducted again with 25% and 35% of calories as fat, centrilobular brosis, resembling that seen in baboons and humans, developed in more than half of the rats (Nanji, 2003).