DOES CHRONIC ALCOHOL-CONSUMPTION ALTER DI GESTIVE GASTROBILIARY MOTILITY

In 23 chronic alcoholics and 23 controls gastric emptying, antral moti lity, fasting gall bladder volume and gallbladder emptying after a sta ndardized, liquid fatty meal were investigated ultrasonically in order to assess the effect of chronic alcoholism on postprandial gastrobili ary motility. Only a subgroup of the alcoholics with signs of autonomi c cardiovascular neuropathy (21.7%) exhibited a significant antral hyp omotility and a tendency towards higher fasting gallbladder volumes. N o significant differences:between the study groups could be obtained f or the other parameters. The duration and daily amounts of alcohol con sumption were not significant different between patients with autonomi c neuropathy and patients without autonomic neuropathy. Within the who le group of alcohol consumers the only significant correlation that wa s observed occured between the fat induced gallbladder residual volume s and the amounts of daily alcohol consumption (r=0.62, p <0.05). Howe ver 19 of these 23 relative gallbladder residual volumes:were within: the nonal range (95. percentile of the control group), indicating no m ajor clinical relevance of this phenomenon. None of the motility param eters exhibited a significant correlation to the duration of alcohol c onsumption. From these results chronic alcohol consumption has no irre versible effects of clinical re Ievance on the postprandial gastrobili ary motility in the majority of patients in contrast to the well docum ented reversible effects of acute alcohol consumption on gastric motil ity.