“Alcoholic liver disease” — not a perfect term, but a growing problem

Abstract

It used to be called alcoholic hepatitis. Many people assumed this meant you had to be an alcoholic — a person with an alcohol use disorder (AUD), in contemporary terms — for alcohol to hurt your liver. And while alcoholic hepatitis (AH) is still used, alcohol‐induced hepatitis has been used more recently. Now, the word “alcohol” is being removed. But this doesn't mean anything: alcohol is the culprit.