(Press-News.org) INDIANAPOLIS -- In a groundbreaking study, research scientists from the Indiana University School of Medicine and Regenstrief Institute found that individuals with a parent who died from liver disease face more than double the risk of developing alcohol-associated hepatitis, one of the deadliest forms of alcohol-related liver disease, compared with similar heavy drinkers without that family history.
Researchers investigated the impact of parental liver disease mortality on both the development and outcomes of alcohol-associated hepatitis in adult children. In the U.S., nearly 20,000 people die from alcoholic liver disease each year, according to the National Council on Alcoholism and Drug Dependence.
Alcohol-associated hepatitis is a severe and often fatal form of alcohol-associated liver disease. Although excessive alcohol use is a key risk factor, the precise biological mechanisms that cause some heavy drinkers to develop alcohol-associated hepatitis while others do not remain unclear.
The study analyzed data from two large, multicenter cohorts, including patients with alcohol-associated hepatitis and heavy-drinkers without significant liver disease. Researchers documented that parental alcohol use disorder was common in both groups, but it was a parent's death due to liver disease – not simply a history of alcohol use – that was associated with increased risk of alcohol-associated hepatitis.
The study’s authors emphasize that identifying individuals with a family history of liver disease mortality could enable earlier intervention and counseling to reduce alcohol consumption, potentially preventing the onset of alcohol-associated hepatitis.
“Alcohol-associated hepatitis is a life-threatening condition with high short-term mortality. So far there is no effective treatment that is approved by the FDA,” said first author, IU School of Medicine Professor and Regenstrief Research Scientist Wanzhu Tu, PhD. “Corticosteroids could help reduce liver inflammation, but these drugs also increase the risk of infection. And many patients are ineligible for steroids. So, treatment options are limited.
“The best way to reduce the mortality and morbidity of alcohol-associated hepatitis is to prevent it from occurring in the first place, which is why reducing alcohol consumption has always been a primary focus,” said Dr. Tu, who led the study. “For prevention, it's especially important to identify people who are at higher risk. That’s why this study is important. When a patient reports that a parent died of liver disease, that’s not just background information — it’s a red flag. It may indicate a genetic or familial susceptibility, and that’s exactly what our data show.”
The researchers also found that patients who have been diagnosed with alcohol-associated hepatitis, who had a parent die from liver disease, are more likely to die themselves within 90 days of diagnosis.
“A parent’s death from liver disease is a clear and measurable risk marker,” said Samer Gawrieh, M.D., a professor at the IU School of Medicine and the corresponding author of the paper. “Recognizing this can help clinicians identify those at higher risk for alcohol-associated hepatitis and guide preventive strategies. For those already diagnosed, discussing family history can be a powerful tool to encourage alcohol abstinence and improve outcomes.”
A call for further research
The research also highlights a pressing need to further investigate genetic and epigenetic factors that may underlie this familial risk, beyond shared environmental influences or drinking patterns.
“This could be due to inherited genetic susceptibility, environmental stressors or a combination of both,” said Dr. Gawrieh. “Either way, it's a critical piece in understanding who is most vulnerable to the devastating consequences of alcohol misuse.”
“Parental liver disease mortality is associated with unfavorable outcomes in patients with alcohol-associated hepatitis,” is published in the academic journal Hepatology Communications.
The study was funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) through the Alcoholic Hepatitis Network (AlcHepNet) and the Translational Research Evolving Alcoholic Hepatitis Treatment (TREAT) consortium.
Authors and their affiliations, as listed in the publication, are:
Wanzhu Tu1, Samer Gawrieh1, Lauren Nephew1, Craig McClain2, Qing Tang1, Srinivasan Dasarathy3, Vatsalya Vatsalya2, Douglas A Simonetto4, Carla Kettler1, Gyongyi Szabo5, Bruce Barton6, Yunpeng Yu1, Patrick S Kamath4, Arun J Sanyal7, Laura Nagy3, Mack C Mitchell8, Suthat Liangpunsakul1, Vijay H Shah4, Naga Chalasani1, Ramon Bataller9; AlcHepNet Investigators
Affiliations
1Department of Medicine, and Department of Biostatistics and Health Data Science, Indiana University School of Medicine, Indianapolis, Indiana, USA.
2Department of Medicine, University of Louisville, Louisville, Kentucky, USA.
3Department of Gastroenterology, Hepatology and Nutrition, Cleveland Clinic, Cleveland, Ohio, USA.
4Department of Internal Medicine, Mayo Clinic, Rochester, Minnesota, USA.
5Department of Medicine, Harvard University, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.
6Department of Population and Quantitative Health Sciences, University of Massachusetts, Worcester, Massachusetts, USA.
7Department of Internal Medicine, Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, Virginia, USA.
8Department of Internal Medicine, UT Southwestern Medical Center, Dallas, Texas, USA.
9Department of Medicine, Universitat de Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain.
Wanzhu Tu, PhD
In addition to his role as a research scientist with the Indiana University Center for Aging Research at Regenstrief Institute, Wanzhu Tu, PhD, is a professor and the vice chair in the Department of Biostatistics and Health Data Science at Indiana University School of Medicine. He is also an adjunct professor at the Indiana University Indianapolis Richard M. Fairbanks School of Public Health.
END
Parental liver disease death more than doubles risk of alcohol-associated hepatitis in next generation
2025-08-26
ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:
Shared gene signatures and key mechanisms in the progression from liver cirrhosis to acute-on-chronic liver failure
2025-08-26
Background and objectives
Chronic liver cirrhosis (LC) and acute-on-chronic liver failure (ACLF) are interconnected hepatic disorders associated with substantial morbidity and mortality. Despite their distinct clinical characteristics, both conditions share common pathogenic pathways that remain inadequately understood. This study aimed to identify shared gene signatures and elucidate underlying molecular mechanisms.
Methods
In this study, we employed Weighted Gene Co-Expression Network Analysis to explore transcriptomic ...
Rural Health Care Outcomes Accelerator extended to 2028
2025-08-26
DALLAS, August 26, 2025 — Research shows that rural Americans are at 30% higher risk of stroke, are 40% more likely to develop heart disease and live an average of three years fewer than their urban counterparts.[1]
The American Heart Association, devoted to changing the future to a world of healthier lives for all, is committed to closing the gap between rural and urban health outcomes. To continue improving cardiovascular care in rural communities, the Association announced today the three-year funding extension of its Rural Health Care Outcomes Accelerator through June 2028.
Since its launch in ...
Feeling good about yourself
2025-08-26
Emotions are complicated things. Researchers have found some differences between men and women, but basically the same factors play the biggest part in whether we feel good about ourselves.
“We investigated differences between the sexes and the relationships between factors that influence participants’ motivation and well-being,” said Professor Hermundur Sigmundsson at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU’s) Department of Psychology.
He has spent many years studying what it takes for people to achieve their goals, and in this ...
People with schizophrenia have higher risk of COPD
2025-08-26
Miami (August 26, 2025) – People with schizophrenia are more likely to develop chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), suggesting a possible syndemic relationship between the two diseases, in addition to people not seeking appropriate medical care. A new article examining the link between COPD and schizophrenia appears in the July 2025 issue of Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Diseases: Journal of the COPD Foundation, a peer-reviewed, open access journal.
COPD encompasses conditions including emphysema and ...
Sibling-specific aggression in women and girls
2025-08-26
Human men are typically more aggressive than human women, a finding supported by reams of research. But surveys of 4,136 individuals in 24 countries reveal an exception to the trend: aggression in sibling relationships. Douglas T. Kenrick and Michael E.W. Warnum, along with a team of 49 colleagues, asked participants how often they had acted aggressively towards a sister, a brother, a female friend, a male friend, a female acquaintance, or a male acquaintance—both when they were children and when they were adults. Aggressive actions included both direct aggression, such as hitting/slapping ...
Study raises red flags about BPA replacements
2025-08-26
Chemicals used to replace bisphenol A (BPA) in food packaging can trigger potentially harmful effects in human ovarian cells, according to McGill University researchers.
A new study examined several chemicals commonly used in price stickers on packaged meat, fish, cheese and produce found early signs of potential toxicity.
The findings, published in the journal Toxicological Sciences, raise concerns about the safety of BPA-free packaging and whether current regulations go far enough to protect consumers.
BPA substitutes disrupt gene expression
The research began with the 2023 discovery by Stéphane Bayen, Associate Professor in McGill’s ...
The irresistibility of extrapolating from past performance
2025-08-26
Researchers explore the human tendency to look to the past to predict the future—even when people rationally know outcomes are completely random. A fair coin flip is the prototypically random-outcome event. Russell Roberts and colleagues asked 12,000 people to predict coin flip outcomes in a sequence of five fair coin tosses—some in person, some online. With such a large number of participants, they were able to analyze subsets of people who—by chance—made a series of successful or unsuccessful guesses without any deception or manipulation of the ...
Predicting nationality from beliefs and values
2025-08-26
Different countries have different cultures, and social scientists have developed theories about which values are most important in differentiating the world’s cultures. Abhishek Sheetal and colleagues used the power of machine learning to identify the crucial distinguishing characteristics of the world’s national cultures in a theory-blind manner. The authors trained a neural network to predict an individual’s country of origin from their attitudes, values, and beliefs, as measured by the World Values Survey, a global study that probes everything from religious beliefs ...
Mindset shift about catastrophes linked to decreased depression, inflammation
2025-08-26
Catastrophes, by definition, are devastating, but they can often be catalysts for lasting, positive change – and if people can adopt that perspective, they may see some real benefits, a Stanford-led study suggests.
In a randomized, controlled trial, a one-hour intervention was given to a group of adults designed to shift their mindset, or core beliefs and assumptions, about having lived through a catastrophe like the COVID-19 pandemic, with the goal of seeing growth opportunities in the experience.
Those who received the intervention showed lower levels of depression three months later compared to a control group. Blood tests also revealed lower ...
Astronomers make unexpected discovery of planet in formation around a young star
2025-08-26
An international team of astronomers, co-led by researchers at University of Galway, has made the unexpected discovery of a new planet.
Detected at an early stage of formation around a young analog of our own Sun, the planet is estimated to be about 5 million years-old and most likely a gas giant of similar size to Jupiter.
The study, which was led by Leiden University, University of Galway and University of Arizona, has been published in the international journal Astrophysical Journal Letters.
The ground-breaking discovery was made using ...