Alcohol consumption makes you thirsty - cravings for alcohol are actually reduced

Alcohol consumption raises liver hormone and reduces alcohol craving

In a recent study, it has been shown that alcohol intake raises a specific liver hormone and reduces the craving for alcohol. This hormone also controls the craving for sweets.

Sugar and alcohol consumption make you thirsty

Most people have already experienced that a strong feeling of thirst is felt after consuming alcoholic beverages. Also sugar consumption makes you thirsty. According to a new study, the hormone FGF21 formed in the liver appears to be responsible in both cases. As scientists noted years ago, this hormone also slows down our taste for sweets and alcohol.

Alcohol consumption increases the thirst. Responsible for this is apparently a particular hormone, which also controls the craving sweet and alcohol. (Image: petrrgoskov / fotolia.com)

Hormone controls the craving for sweets and alcohol

As the Medical University (Med Uni) Graz reports in a recent communication, the hormone FGF21 released by the liver plays an essential role in the energy metabolism and stimulates the energy utilization in the liver and the energy supply of the brain during a prolonged fasting period. It also controls the craving for sweets and alcohol.

Researchers at Med Uni Graz have collaborated with international colleagues on a project at the CBmed Center for Biomarker Research in Medicine to investigate how FGF21 levels in the blood correlate with alcohol consumption and whether increased secretion of this hormone is an explanation for the observed reduced desire for Alcohol in laboratory models with high levels of FG21 blood.

The results of the research have recently been published in the journal "Cell Metabolism".

FGF21 with central importance for the entire energy budget

The liver is a central metabolic organ that adapts the body to metabolic needs during periods of eating and fasting and regulates the utilization of the nutrients it provides.

"The regulation of such adjustments is made, inter alia, via hormonal signaling pathways", explains Assoz.-Prof.in Pdin Dr.in Vanessa Stadlbauer-Köllner from the clinical department for gastroenterology and hepatology of the Med Uni Graz and head of the working group "Transplantation Research".

Together with her colleague Assoz.-Prof. PD Dr. Martin Wagner, head of the working group "Translational Nuclear Receptor Research in Liver Metabolism" at Med Uni Graz and colleagues from CBmed and the University of Texas South Western Medical Center, Dallas, USA, examined whether alcohol controls the liver hormone FGF21.

FGF21 is a hormone produced and secreted in the liver with central importance for the sugar and fat metabolism and thus the entire energy balance.

"The signaling molecule FGF21 is produced in the liver during extended periods of fasting and stimulates during this time, among other things, the energy utilization in the liver and the energy supply to the brain," explain the two experts.

The hormone FGF21 is also activated by sugar and causes in the brain that the craving for sweets is reduced.

The mouse model shows that increased FGF21 concentration in the blood also reduces the craving for alcohol. Until now, however, it was not known if alcohol in principle could increase the FGF21 payout.

Alcohol consumption causes FGF21 concentration in the blood to rise sharply

In a clinical study, the scientists at Med Uni Graz examined how the intake of alcohol affects the FGF21 concentration in the blood.

It was found that just two hours after the consumption of 40% alcohol in the amount of two ml per kilogram of body weight, the FGF21 level had risen to 10 times the starting value.

The control group, which got orange juice in the same period, showed no changes.

"Our contribution to the overall work has shown that acute alcohol consumption in humans rapidly increases FGF21 levels in the blood, increasing the desire for water, and that FGF21 is generally an important hormonal stimulus for water balance in the body," the researchers write Part of the research result.

Both Wagner and Stadlbauer-Koellner suspect that, similar to the mouse model, an increased FGF21 level ensures that the craving for alcohol is suppressed.

"Why this mechanism with alcoholic people does not work or does not work well, however, is still unclear," the researchers said.

They suspect that mutations in FGF21 receptors in the brain may be responsible for this primary resistance. This is also confirmed by the results of a large mutational study recently conducted.

Understand the metabolic effects of alcohol

Also "secondary FGF21 resistance", similar to insulin resistance and type 2 diabetes, could play a role in chronically elevated FGF21 levels, say the experts.

"We are just beginning to understand the potential implications of these baseline studies to understand FGF21 for humans in various facets. As physicians and scientists, however, we see ourselves as a translational link to test these findings in relevant human situations, "the researchers explain.

"We are all the more pleased that we could now tax an important contribution on the human relevance of FGF21." The two now want to investigate the clinical aspects of alcohol consumption in more detail.

"We only know that acute alcohol consumption stimulates FGF21, but we do not know what happens, for example, with chronic alcohol consumption or whether it requires a certain minimum amount of alcohol to stimulate FGF21. These are essential questions to understand the potentially far-reaching connections between the liver hormone FGF21 and the metabolic effects of alcohol, "the researchers emphasize together. (Ad)