USE OF ARTIFICIAL SWEETENERS TO PROMOTE ALCOHOL-CONSUMPTION BY RATS

Cirrhosis may be reliably produced in rats by exposing them intermitte ntly to low levels of carbon tetrachloride vapour while feeding alcoho l in the Lieber-DeCarli liquid diet. Providing the alcohol in drinking water that has been sweetened with sucrose is a cheaper and more conv enient method but it does not yield reliable results. This study aimed to determine whether alcohol in drinking water sweetened with artific ial sweeteners would give adequate alcohol intake to achieve the desir ed hepatic effects. Rats were fed alcohol (8% v/v) in drinking water s weetened with sucrose (5% w/v) (n = 12), or with one of the artificial sweeteners aspartame (0.025%), saccharin (0.025%) or cyclamate (0.05% ) (n = 8 per agent). During the alcohol treatment the animals were exp osed to carbon tetrachloride vapour, 40 ppm, six hours per night for f ive nights per week, over a period of 14 weeks. All groups achieved go od alcohol intakes of 5-6 g/kg/day. Only one rat, in the aspartame gro up, became cirrhotic; all the others had varying degrees of fibrosis w hich did not differ significantly among the treatments, Although it wa s not effective in reliably achieving cirrhosis, sweetening the alcoho l solution with artificial sweeteners led to reasonable alcohol intake s with resultant hepatic fibrosis, and without the high carbohydrate i ntake which occurs when sucrose is used.