Background:
Studies with experimental administration of alcohol offer inconsistent approaches and interpretations in which ways an acute alcohol exposure affects the HPA-system and the cortisol secretion. So far published alcohol experiments differ in alcohol application, the possibility of alcohol self-administration at the subjects own discretion as well as the age of the participants.
Question:
Is cortisol secretion modified by gender during alcohol infusion?
Do men and women show different cortisol levels under alcohol exposure when compared to the baseline? Is there a dose-response relationship between cortisol secretion and acute alcohol exposure? Have family history, smoking habits and alcohol induced side effects like nausea an influence on the cortisol secretion under alcohol exposure?
Materials and methods:
48 18 year old subjects participated in two identical sessions in which they were able to regulate their maximum blood alcohol concentration up to a safety limit of 1.2 ‰ (i.e., 0.12%). The experiment was conducted by using a special software for self-infusion of ethanol (CASE) which guided the participants through a two and a half hours long experiment. CASE is founded on a validated physiologically-based pharmacokinetic model and involves calculating the infusion volume needed to increase the blood alcohol concentration in a linear manner. The BAC increases after each alcohol request by 0,075 ‰ (i.e., 0.0075%) within in two and a half minutes. If the subject infuses no alcohol the blood alcohol concentration will decrease by 0.01 ‰ (i.e., 0.001%) per minute. Through the precise calculation of the infusion rate, individual differences can be eliminated. Cortisol levels were measured at five time points: an initial baseline measurement and four measurements at fixed time points during the alcohol self-administration of subjects with two completed alcohol experiments. As an appropriate measure to examine the effect of alcohol self-administration on cortisol secretion, the maximum blood alcohol concentration was determined. In addition the day of experiment, gender and family history were observed as well as exploratory maximum nausea and smoking habits.
Results:
In conclusion, the results confirmed that women have higher cortisol levels than men at baseline and under alcohol influence. Blood alcohol concentration as examined influencing variable was shown to have different effects on the HPA system on day one and two. On the first day of experimentation there was no effect of blood alcohol concentration on the HPA system. On the second day a dose-response relationship could be identified between cortisol secretion and acute alcohol exposure. Individually higher blood alcohol concentrations attenuated cortisol stronger in comparison to subjects with lower blood alcohol concentrations. Family history, smoking habits and unpleasant side effects (nausea) did not affect the cortisol secretion under alcohol exposure in this series of experiments.
Conclusions:
Current data suggests that alcohol experiments affect the cortisol secretion in young social drinkers. These findings could be detected for the first time. Up to this point there has not been an experimental study that investigated and evaluated the dose-effect relationship between cortisol secretion and alcohol in a study design which uses intravenous alcohol self-administration. It can be theorized that the first day of experimentation is suitable as a settling-in phase due to unspecific confounding factors, whereas the second day can be considered, in an identical setting, apt for hypothesis testing. The increased cortisol level in women when compared to men is consistent with previous studies and there was no indication that family history, smoking habits and alcohol induced unpleasant side effects have an influence on cortisol secretion.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:DRESDEN/oai:qucosa.de:bsz:14-qucosa-203884 |
| Date | 14 July 2016 |
| Creators | Markovic, Alexandra Verena |
| Contributors | Technische Universität Dresden, Medizinische Fakultät Carl Gustav Carus, Prof. Dr. med. Ulrich S. Zimmermann |
| Publisher | Saechsische Landesbibliothek- Staats- und Universitaetsbibliothek Dresden |
| Source Sets | Hochschulschriftenserver (HSSS) der SLUB Dresden |
| Language | deu |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | doc-type:doctoralThesis |
| Format | application/pdf |
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