A recent study conducted by researchers at the Kobe University Graduate School of Medicine found that Journal of Psychiatry Researchhas uncovered compelling evidence that alcoholism accelerates biological aging. By examining various epigenetic markers, the researchers found that alcoholics experienced accelerated aging, but that aging slowed down after a three-week treatment program.
Alcoholism is a chronic disease characterized by an inability to control drinking despite its detrimental effects on health and daily life. The disease not only exacerbates existing chronic diseases but also causes premature death worldwide. It is estimated that approximately 2.5 million people die each year from alcohol-related causes, highlighting the critical need for effective interventions and a better understanding of its consequences.
Alcoholism is known to increase the risk of several serious health problems, including liver disease, cardiovascular disease, and cognitive impairment. Continuous heavy drinking causes widespread damage throughout the body and is manifested in various ways, including cerebral gray matter atrophy, affecting brain function and accelerating cognitive decline.
Despite this understanding, many questions remain about the specific biological mechanisms by which alcoholism harms health. This knowledge gap has prompted researchers to use advanced scientific tools to investigate potential connections.
One of the key areas of interest in recent years is the study of biological aging from the perspective of epigenetics, particularly DNA methylation patterns. Epigenetic changes provide insight into how lifestyle factors, such as alcohol consumption, affect the aging process at a molecular level.
Epigenetic clocks, which predict biological age based on genome-wide DNA methylation patterns, have emerged as powerful tools in aging research: these clocks can indicate the pace of biological aging and are associated with a variety of health outcomes, including all-cause mortality and the development of age-related diseases.
For their study, the researchers utilized a publicly available DNA methylation dataset (GSE98876) from the Gene Expression Omnibus database. The dataset included samples from 24 alcohol-dependent patients and 23 healthy controls. All participants were male and were primarily German, with one Polish participant in the patient group. The patients’ data was collected before and after a three-week alcohol treatment program at the Psychiatric and Psychotherapy Clinic in Tübingen, Germany.
DNA methylation profiles were obtained from blood samples, focusing specifically on CD3+ T cells, a type of immune cell. The researchers used this data to evaluate six different epigenetic clocks: HorvathAge, HannumAge, SkinBloodAge, PhenoAge, GriMAge, and GriMAge2. They also looked at DNA methylation-based telomere length (DNAmTL) and the DunedinPACE metric, which quantifies the pace of biological aging.
The researchers found that alcoholics showed accelerated aging compared to healthy individuals, and these findings were consistent across multiple epigenetic clocks.
The most significant finding was related to the DunedinPACE clock, which suggests that alcohol-dependent patients experience a faster pace of biological aging. This clock measures the rate of aging based on a comprehensive set of biomarkers related to various bodily functions, including cardiovascular, metabolic, renal, hepatic, pulmonary and immune systems. The accelerated aging observed in these patients is consistent with known health risks associated with chronic alcohol consumption, including liver disease, renal dysfunction and cardiovascular problems.
The results also showed that the treatment program had a beneficial effect on slowing the progression of biological aging: Patients who underwent a three-week alcohol treatment program showed a significant slowdown in biological aging, as measured by the GrimAge and GrimAge2 clocks.
These clocks incorporate specific biomarkers that predict mortality and disease risk, and the findings suggest that treatment can mitigate some of the aging effects associated with alcoholism. The study also found that patients after the treatment program had increased telomere length, a marker of cellular aging, further suggesting that some of the changes associated with aging are reversed.
The study also uncovered changes in certain biomarkers related to aging and health. Levels of beta-2 microglobulin (B2M) and cystatin C, which are associated with declines in renal and cognitive function, were significantly reduced after the treatment program. This reduction was consistent with the improvements in renal and cognitive function seen in abstinent patients.
Overall, the findings provide strong evidence that alcoholism accelerates biological aging, while also highlighting the possibility that treatment programs may mitigate some of these effects.
the study, “Accelerated epigenetic aging in alcoholism” was written by Shirai Toshiyuki, Okazaki Satoshi, Otsuka Ikuo, Miyaji Masao, Tanito Takaki, Shindo Ryota, Okada Shohei, Minami Haruka, Horai Tadashi, Mori Kentaro, and Hishimoto Akitoyo.
