Alcohol, host defence and society.
Impaired health caused by alcohol abuse has been known throughout recorded history. Over the past century, alcohol abuse has been clearly linked to host susceptibility to infectious disease, particularly bacterial pneumonia. Recently, both acute and chronic alcohol intake have been shown to result in specific defects in innate and adaptive immunity; these could, in principle, be subjected to specific modulation to overcome the immunosuppressive effects of the most commonly abused substance in the Western world.
Nelson
Steve
S
LSU Health Sciences Center Alcohol Research Center, and Section of Pulmonary Critical Care, LSU Health Sciences Center, 533 Bolivar Street, New Orleans, Louisiana 70112, USA.
Kolls
Jay K
JK
D000437:Alcoholism / Q000150:complications / Q000276:immunology* / Q000401:mortality; D000431:Ethanol / Q000633:toxicity*; D006801:Humans; D007107:Immune System / Q000187:drug effects; D007113:Immunity, Innate / Q000187:drug effects*; D007239:Infections / Q000209:etiology
D000431:Ethanol