Alcoholism causes major health problems as alcoholic liver disease. The mechanisms involved in the various forms of alcoholic liver disease are fatty liver, alcoholic hepatitis, and cirrhosis, which are again poorly understood. Therefore a comprehensive Knowledge of these mechanisms will provide a framework for the therapy and prevention of liver disease due to alcohol. This will further help identify individuals most susceptible to develop liver disease from alcohol abuse. 

An experiment was specifically designed to evaluate the postulate that ethanol-induced pericentral liver damage results from an accentuated gradient of decreasing oxygen tension leading to pericentral hypoxia. It utilized Microlight guides to detect NADH fluorescence and employed miniature oxygen electrodes to measure oxygen tensions from periportal and pericentral regions of the liver lobule from the perfused rat liver. Ethanol treatment showed an increase in the hepatic oxygen gradient with both the techniques, which was blocked by the antithyroid drug propylthiouracil. 

Thus, evidence was collected in support of the hypothesis that pericentral hypoxia is involved in the mechanism of ethanol-induced liver injury. Additionally, low-flow hypoxia caused blebs in the pericentral region of the liver lobule in ~15 min, which possibly represents the mechanism for the well-known release of enzymes by impaired hepatic tissues.

Source: Thurman RG, Ji S, Lemasters JJ. Alcohol-induced liver injury. The role of oxygen. Recent Dev Alcohol. 1984;2:103-17. PMID: 6374778.