ASSOCIATION OF BIOCHEMICAL AND SUBJECTIVE INDICATORS OF DRINKING HABITS WITH PERFORMANCE ON DIFFERENT NEUROBEHAVIORAL TASKS

The present paper outlines the association of biochemical and subjecti ve indicators of alcohol consumption. Due to its relevance as a potent ial confounding variable in occupational neurotoxicology, both sources of information about drinking habits were related to neurobehavioral test performance. A sample of 308 rotogravure printers and control sub jects from a cross-sectional longitudinal study in various German prin ting plants was studied. Duration of employment was 4 months to 44 yea rs (mean = 14.9, sd = 9.67). Mean age was 38.4 years (range 21 - 60). From venous blood samples three parameters considered to be sensitive for increased consumption of alcohol were used. They were carbohydrate -deficient transferrin (CDT), gamma glutamyl transferase (GGT) and mea n cell volume (MCV). During the medical interview subjects with any ch ronic liver disease were identified and excluded from data analysis. A dditionally, information about weekly consumption of alcohol was asses sed and transformed to grams per day (g/d) values. Neurobehavioral tes ting included simple reaction time (SPES version), switching attention , symbol digit substitution, and digit span (EURONEST version). Additi onally, a questionnaire of neurotoxic complaints was administrated. Ot her covariates, i.e. verbal ability, history of solvent exposure, and age were controlled. GGT and CDT were elevated in 10.5 % and 6.6 % of the population. 3.5 % of the subjects reported daily consumption highe r than 60 gram. There were positive correlations of CDT and GGT with t he subjective indicator of drinking habits. The magnitude of these rel ationships were low, but the associations were significant. MCV was no t correlated with subjective reports of drinking habits, but it showed convergent correlations with CDT and GGT. Comparison of these two par ameters with performance on neurobehavioral tasks yielded only one neg ative association, i.e. between the memory-loaded tasks factor and GGT . CDT and subjective estimation of alcohol consumption were not relate d to any cognitive function tested in this study. Especially, the digi ts-backward task was negatively correlated with increased GGT. (C) 199 8 Inter Press, Inc.