Effects of moderate red wine consumption on liver fat and blood lipids: a prospective randomized study

Abstract Background: There have been no human prospective randomized studies of the amount of alcohol that can induce hepatic steatosis. Methods: Thirty-two healthy women and twelve healthy men (34 ± 9 years of age) were randomized to consume 150 ml of red wine/day for women (16 g ethanol/day) or double that amount for men (33 g ethanol/day), or to alcohol abstention for 90 days. Participants underwent proton-nuclear magnetic-resonance spectroscopy for measurement of hepatic triglyceride content (HTGC). Blood samples for assessment of cardiovascular risk were drawn before and after the intervention. Results: After exclusion of three subjects with steatosis at baseline a trend towards increased HTGC was apparent for red wine (before median: 1.1%, range 0.2–3.9%, after median: 1.1%, range 0.5–5.2 %, P = 0.059) a difference that was statistically significant compared with abstainers (p = 0.02). However, no subject developed hepatic steatosis. Low–density lipoprotein (LDL)-cholesterol was lowered by red wine (–0.3 mmol/l, SE –0.1, 95% CI –0.6 to –0.04). Conclusions: Moderate consumption of red wine during three months increased HTGC in subjects without steatosis at baseline. However, since not a single participant developed steatosis we suggest that the threshold of alcohol consumption to define nonalcoholic fatty liver disease should not be lower than the amount in our study. Trial registration: ClinicalTrials.gov identifier: NCT00954434.