Structural and Functional Fundamentals of Alcoholic Disease

Abstract

Aim. To suggest a new perspective on chronic alcohol intoxication by means of investigating the associated severe multiple organ pathology, which frequently becomes the cause of lethal outcome in patients suffering from drunkenness and alcoholism.Key points. The empirical basis of the study consisted in the analysis of autopsy results obtained from 1,115 corpses of persons having abused alcohol during their lifetime. In addition, 800 experiments on rats were carried out.  As a result, a concept of alcoholic disease (AD) is proposed. AD is defined as a condition, in which chronic ethanol intoxication leads to the development of morphological changes in organs and systems: from minimal injuries of the microcirculatory pathway to a multiple organ pathology showing signs of alcoholism. AD pathogenesis is demonstrated to undergo 3 major stages, from (1) episodic alcohol intoxication, through (2) drunkenness and to (3) alcoholism. It is noted that, while the morphological changes are considered to be reversible during the first two stages, they become irreversible at the stage of alcoholism.Conclusion. It is concluded that the forms of the disease that involve the described morphological changes in organs and systems should be primarily treated by physicians, not by psychiatrists and narcology practitioners who are only capable of dealing with the psychological aspect of the problem.