Alcohol consumption accounts for a major cause of liver disease globally; thus demands novel therapeutic interventions. Pivotal circumstances for the onset and progression of the alcoholic liver disease result due to the gut-to-liver interaction. Osteopontin is a cytokine that is abundantly found in human milk, umbilical cord, and infants plasma and has shown its beneficial potential. A study hypothesized that milk osteopontin when considered in diet, may prevent alcohol-induced liver injury probably by maintaining gut integrity and preventing hepatic inflammation and steatosis. 

Wild-type mice were fed either ethanol Lieber-DeCarli diets (alone or with milk osteopontin) or control for 3 weeks. They were subjected to gut and liver damage evaluation and the following observations were made-

• Milk osteopontin showed protective effects in the stomach and the gut by increasing gland height, crypt cell plus enterocyte proliferation, and mucin content, along with diminishing macrophages, plasmacytes, lymphocytes, and neutrophils in the mucosa as well as submucosa of the alcohol-fed mice. 
• Milk osteopontin aimed at the gut-liver axis and maintained the expression of tight-junction proteins thus preserving intestinal integrity and permeability in alcohol-fed mice. 
• Decreased transaminases, the activity scores, triglyceride levels, neutrophil infiltration, 3-nitrotyrosine residues, lipid peroxidation end products, translocation of gram-negative bacteria, lipopolysaccharide levels, and tumor necrosis factor-α protected cotreated mice from liver injury than the ethanol-fed mice. 
• OPN knockout mice showed reduced ethanol-mediated liver injury by milk osteopontin.

Thus, Milk osteopontin, due to its gut protective, anti-inflammatory, anti-steatotic actions etc could serve as a simple yet effective nutritional therapeutic strategy to prevent alcohol hepatotoxicity.

Source- Ge X, Lu Y, Leung TM, Sørensen ES, Nieto N. Milk osteopontin, a nutritional approach to prevent alcohol-induced liver injury, American Journal of Physiology-Gastrointestinal and Liver Physiology, 2013;304(10)