Association Between Long-term Alcohol Consumption and Undercarboxylated Osteocalcin.

The Japanese Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare has focused on enhancing knowldge about the association between alcohol consumption and health, such as early detection of alcohol abuse, the appropriate actions to be taken after detection, and prevention of teenage drinking. They believe that it is necessary to develop and improve the methods for early detection of alcohol-related problems in an easy and effective way. Given this context, we hypothsized that simultaneous determination of osteocalcin (OC) and undercarboxylated osteocalcin ucOC), bone metabolic markers, would facilitate research on the effects of alcohol drinking. We divided volunteers into a group of long-term drinkers (heavy drinking for 20 years or more) and a group of social drinkers (moderate and controlled drinkers), and determined blood DC, ucOC, bone-specific alkaline phosphatase (BAP), and tartrate-resistant acid phosphatase isoform 5b (TRACP-5b) levels, as bone metabolic markers, and glutamic-oxaloacetic transaminase (GOT), mitochondrial GOT (m-GOT), glutamic pyruvic transaminase (GPT), and γ-glutamyl transpeptidase (γ-GTP) levels, as biochemical markers. In addition, we determined the levels of free and bound ethanol and methanol in urine as markers of alcohol abuse and dependence. The group of long-term drinkers showed significantly higher levels of OC and ucOC than the group of social drinkers (p < 0.01). Long-term drinkers also showed a significantly higher level of m-GOT than the social drinkers in the biochemical examinations (p < 0.01). Long-term drinkers showed a tendency to have increased free/bound ethanol and methanol levels in urine compared to social drinkers, but the differences were not statistically significant. The above results suggest that determination of the levels of OC and ucOC can provide useful information for the early detection of heavy drinkers, indicating that OC and ucOC may be used as markers for preventing alcohol dependence.

Measurement of free and bound alcohol metabolites and methanol in human biological samples--free and bound alcohol metabolites and methanol in acute alcohol administration.

There are almost no studies on the in vivo distribution kinetics of free and bound ethanol, alcohol metabolites (acetaldehyde and acetate) or the related substance, methanol, during alcohol oxidation. Thus, an acute alcohol administration experiment (alcohol consumption experiment) was carried out using volunteers (five healthy adult males; 2 flushers, 3 non-flushers), and distribution kinetics were investigated in biological samples (blood and urine). The levels of alcohol metabolites and methanol were measured as free compounds in blood samples and bound and free compounds in urine samples. The results showed an increase over time of free alcohol metabolites in both the flusher and non-flusher groups, followed by a subsequent decrease. In addition, free methanol increased over time. Both bound alcohol metabolites and bound methanol were found to increase over time. Based on these findings, levels of free and bound alcohol metabolites and methanol in the biological samples were found to increase relative to levels before consumption in both the flusher and non-flusher groups. This is thought to be due to the binding of alcohol metabolites and methanol to biological components and increases during ethanol oxidation. It was concluded that this is the mechanism by which ethanol, alcohol metabolites and methanol accumulate in the body as a result of chronic alcohol consumption, suggesting that it may be possible to use these compounds as markers of consumption by measuring these compounds in biological samples taken from alcohol abusers or alcoholics.