Biomarker Signatures to Monitor Alcohol Consumption and Induced Organ Damage

Abstract

The difficulty to differentiate long duration alcoholic behaviours is a major obstacle in the diagnosis and its treatment. Biomarkers in alcoholism are indicative of recent alcohol consumption or alcohol-induced organ damage. They are broadly divided into two; state markers, which are tools indicative of acute or chronic alcohol consumption, and trait markers, which are markers indicative of a genetic predisposition responsible to develop alcohol dependence. This review aimed to sensitise the practitioners on different alcohol state markers available now-a-days. An electronic search in Google Scholar, MEDLINE, and PubMed was conducted by using following keywords: Alcohol biomarkers, State markers, Trait markers, Alcohol consumption test. Studies on alcohol biomarkers published in English language were included in this review. Reviews and studies with free access to only abstract have been excluded. The state markers mostly used to identify chronic alcohol exposure are the Gamma-Glutamyltransferase (GGT), Aspartate and Alanine Aminotransferase (AST and ALT) which are routine serum liver function panels and Mean Corpuscular Volume (MCV) which is a haematological marker. The available non-conventional state biomarkers are Phosphatidylethanol (PEth), Fatty Acid Ethyl Esters (FAEE) and 5-Hydroxytryptophol (5-HTOL). The novel state markers which have been developed in recent research context are still awaiting validation and possible introduction to commercial settings are Plasma Sialic Acid Index of Apolipoprotein J (SIJ), Total Serum Sialic Acid (TSA), Acetaldehyde, Acetaldehyde adducts, anti-adduct antibodies and β-Hexosaminidase. Conventional alcohol biomarkers are routinely used in clinical practice. Non-conventional biomarkers seem to be promising for its estimation. Novel biomarkers are at various stages of research and development.