In addition to decreased lymphocyte frequency, alcohol abuse is also associated with shifts in T lymphocyte phenotype. Decreased percentage of CD45RA+ naïve CD4 and CD8 T cells and an increased percentage of CD45RO+ memory subsets was observed in adult males who consumed 30.9 ± 18.7 alcoholic drinks/day (400g/day) for approximately 25.6 ± 11.5 years (Cook, Waldschmidt et al. 1994, Cook, Ballas et al. 1995). Similarly in male and female mice, chronic ethanol consumption of 20% ethanol in water for up to 6 months decreased the percentage of naïve T cells and increased the percentage of memory T cells due to increased homeostatic proliferation (Cho, Rao et al. 2000, Song, Coleman et al. 2002, Zhang and Meadows 2005). Accumulation of memory T cells is associated with increased incidence of chronic inflammatory diseases and age-related pathologies such as osteoporosis, sarcopenia, Alzheimer’s disease, cancer, and cardiovascular disease (Hakim and Gress 2007, Chou and Effros 2013). In addition, loss of naïve T cells would be expected to interfere with the development of efficacious responses to infection and vaccination (Appay and Sauce 2014).
