Why alcohol blocks the liver from healing, even after you quit

Published September 22, 2025 | Originally published on ScienceDaily Top Science
MDLinx
​Excessive alcohol consumption can disrupt the liver's unique regenerative abilities by trapping cells in limbo between their functional and regenerative states, even after a patient stops drinking, researchers at University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and collaborators at Duke University and the Chan Zuckerberg Biohub Chicago describe in a new study.

This in-between state is a result of inflammation disrupting how RNA is spliced during the protein-making process, the researchers found, providing scientists with new treatment pathways to explore for the deadly disease. The researchers published their findings in the journal Nature Communications.

The liver has a remarkable ability to regenerate itself after damage or partial removal. However, it loses that ability in patients with alcohol-associated liver disease — the leading cause of liver-related mortality worldwide, resulting in roughly 3 million deaths annually.

"We knew that the liver stops functioning and stops regenerating in patients with alcohol-related hepatitis and cirrhosis, even when a patient has discontinued consuming alcohol, but we didn't know why," said U. of I. biochemistry professor Auinash Kalsotra, who co-led the study with Duke University School of Medicine professor Anna Mae Diehl. "The only real life-saving treatment option once a patient reaches the liver failure stage in those diseases is transplantation. But if we understood why these livers were failing, maybe we could intervene."

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