White wine for the immune system?
How alcohol in moderation positively influences defective immune reactions
Excessive consumption of alcohol is bad for your health. Moderate amounts of alcohol can, however, have a positive effect on health under certain circumstances. In a recent paper* published in the journal Nature, a research team from the Friedrich-Alexander University of Erlangen-Nuremberg (FAU) shows that alcohol modulates the immune system in a very specific way, inhibiting the development of autoimmune diseases.
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The intoxicating effect of alcohol is widely reported. A study team led by Prof. Dr. Mario Zaiss from the Department of Internal Medicine III at the FAU has investigated a lesser-known property of alcohol - its effect on the immune system. In the medical literature, there are numerous indications that alcohol can have a beneficial effect on a disturbed immune system: As early as 1995, it was reported that patients with a transplanted liver who had a moderate alcohol consumption had a significantly lower risk of a rejection reaction than abstinent persons. In addition, several major epidemiological studies have shown that regular alcohol consumption reduces the risk of developing rheumatoid arthritis, i.e. rheumatoid arthritis, as well as multiple sclerosis. Both diseases are autoimmune diseases in which the immune system attacks and destroys the body's own tissue. An important factor in this process are special immune cells, the follicular T-helper cells, which are located in the lymph nodes and inflammatory tissue and trigger autoimmune reactions.
How alcohol affects the immune system
In their work, the team has now been able to show for the first time how alcohol inhibits excessive immune reactions that lead to autoimmune diseases such as joint rheumatism and multiple sclerosis. In the body, alcohol is degraded to the active substance acetate, which inhibits the function of follicular T-helper cells and thus autoimmune diseases. Follicular T-helper cells obviously react very sensitively to acetate, which changes the metabolism of these cells permanently and suppresses the production of the immune messenger substance interleukin-21. Thus, alcohol in moderate amounts does not have a general immunosuppressive effect, but rather a very specific effect on a type of immune cell which is considered to be the switch point for the acquired immune system. Prof. Zaiss, however, points out: "The negative effects of excessive alcohol consumption should nevertheless always be considered in the light of these data, even though moderate alcohol consumption can have positive health effects and, especially in autoimmune diseases, can produce a therapeutic immunotolerance effect". This effect is probably particularly responsible for the clinical observation that relapses are significantly less frequent in patients with rheumatoid arthritis who regularly consume alcohol.
The work was done within the framework of the research group PANDORA and the Collaborative Research Center SFB1181 "Switchboards for the resolution of inflammation" at FAU, which are supported by the German Research Foundation. The scientists involved are part of the German Center for Immunotherapy (DZI) at the University Hospital Erlangen of FAU.
Note: This article has been translated using a computer system without human intervention. LUMITOS offers these automatic translations to present a wider range of current news. Since this article has been translated with automatic translation, it is possible that it contains errors in vocabulary, syntax or grammar. The original article in German can be found here.
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