Abstract
Fifty chronic alcoholics (25 with and 25 without obvious liver damage) and 20 healthy controls were selected to study the effect of alcohol on thiamin metabolism .Serum transaminase activities were used to detect liver damages. None of the patients had either Wernicke's encephalopathy or beriberi. The results were ad follows: (1) The blood thiamin levels of many of the alcoholics were within the lower limit ofn ormal range. However, the hemolysate transketolase activity (TKA) of 56% of the patients was significantly lower than normal (less than 700μg/ml/h). (2) The TKA of alcoholics who had liver damage was significantly lower than that of alcoholics who had no obvious liver damage (p<0.01). The number of alcoholics who showed high TPP effect was greater in the patients with liver damage than those who had no obvious liver damage. (3) In 28 patients who had low TKA, there were 6 who showed no thiamin pyrophosphate (TPP) effect. (4) In these patients, no obvious correlation was seen between blood thiamin level and TKA or TPP effect. The above results suggest that many of the alcoholics have marginal thiamin deficiency which is detectable by measuring TKA and TPP effect. Among these patients, there were some whose reduced TKA seems to be the results of deficiency in its apoenzyme.
