About our e-newsletters
- Free e-newsletters
- Mayo Clinic expertise
- We do not share your e-mail address
Housecall, our weekly general-interest e-newsletter, keeps you up to date on a wide variety of health topics with timely, reliable, practical information, recipes, blogs, questions and answers with Mayo Clinic experts and more. Our biweekly topic-specific e-newsletters also include blogs, questions and answers with Mayo Clinic experts, and other useful information that will help you manage your health.
Housecall Archives
Mayo Clinic Housecall
Stay up to date on the latest health information.
What you get
- Free weekly e-newsletter
- Mayo Clinic expertise
- Recipes, tools and other helpful information
- We do not share your e-mail address
Treatments and drugs
By Mayo Clinic staff
Stop drinking alcohol
If you've been diagnosed with alcoholic hepatitis, you must stop drinking alcohol. It's the only way to reverse liver damage or, in more advanced cases, to prevent the disease from becoming worse. If you continue to drink alcohol, you're likely to experience serious complications.
If you are dependent on alcohol and want to stop drinking, your doctor can recommend a therapy that's tailored for your needs. This might include medications, counseling, Alcoholics Anonymous, an outpatient treatment program or a residential inpatient stay.
Treatment for malnutrition
Your doctor may recommend a special diet to reverse nutritional deficiencies that can occur in people with alcoholic hepatitis. You may be referred to a dietitian who can help you assess your current diet and suggest changes to increase the vitamins and nutrients you may require more of.
If you have trouble eating enough to get the vitamins and nutrients your body needs, your doctor may recommend tube feeding. This may involve passing a tube down your throat and into your stomach. A special nutrient-rich liquid diet is then passed through the tube.
Medications to reduce liver inflammation
People with severe alcoholic hepatitis may consider short-term treatment with medications to control liver inflammation. In certain situations, your doctor may recommend corticosteroids or pentoxifylline.
Liver transplant
When liver function is severely impaired, a liver transplant may be the only option for some people. Although liver transplantation is often successful, the number of people awaiting transplants far exceeds the number of available organs. For that reason, liver transplantation in people with alcoholic liver disease is controversial.
Some medical centers may be reluctant to perform liver transplants on people with alcoholic liver disease because they believe a substantial number will return to drinking after surgery, won't take the necessary anti-rejection medications, or will require more care and resources than will other patients. Most of these objections have not been borne out in practice, however, and many doctors now feel that some people with alcoholic liver disease are good candidates for transplant surgery. But requirements are still stringent, including abstinence from alcohol for at least six months before surgery and enrollment in a counseling program.
- O'Shea RS, et al. Alcoholic liver disease. American Journal of Gastroenterology. 2010;105:14.
- Carithers RL, et al. Alcoholic liver disease. In: Feldman M, et al. Sleisinger and Fordtran's Gastrointestinal and Liver Disease. 9th ed. Philadelphia, Pa.: Saunders; 2010. http://www.mdconsult.com/book/player/linkTo?type=bookHome&isbn=978-1-4160-6189-2&eid=4-u1.0-B978-1-4160-6189-2..X0001-7--TOP&uniq=200844987-3. Accessed July 14, 2010.
- Alcohol-induced liver disease. American Liver Foundation. http://www.liverfoundation.org/abouttheliver/info/alcohol/. Accessed July 14, 2010.
- Hacker JF, et al. Alcoholic liver disease. American College of Gastroenterology. http://www.acg.gi.org/patients/cgp/cgpvol2.asp#Alcoholic%20Liver. Accessed July 14, 2010.
- Cirrhosis. National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases. http://digestive.niddk.nih.gov/ddiseases/pubs/cirrhosis/index.htm. Accessed July 14, 2010.
- Milk thistle. Natural Medicines Comprehensive Database. http://www.naturaldatabase.com. Accessed July 20, 2010.
- SAMe. Natural Medicines Comprehensive Database. http://www.naturaldatabase.com. Accessed July 20, 2010.
- Hepatitis C FAQs for the public. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. http://www.cdc.gov/hepatitis/C/cFAQ.htm. Accessed July 20, 2010.
Find Mayo Clinic on