| Abstrakt: |
Background. Essential tremor (ET) is one of the most common neurological disorders. ET is characterized by postural and kinetic tremor in the upper extremities, head and less commonly other areas. A distinctive feature of ET is its responsiveness to ethyl-alcohol. The temporary amelioration of tremor following ingestion of a small amount of alcohol has been reported in 45–75% of ET patients. Increased incidence of alcoholism has been suspected in ET; however, no objective evaluation has been performed using laboratory markers to date. Only self-reported data obtained by questionnaires were assessed in all previous studies. We therefore elected to undertake an assessment of alcohol consumption in ET patients, using both questionnaires and laboratory markers of alcohol intake.Methods. Data on alcohol intake in the last 30 days were acquired in 95 ET patients and 35 healthy controls. Blood and urine markers related to alcohol metabolism and liver function were evaluated.Results. The intentional use of alcohol to suppress tremor was reported by 25.5% of patients. Mean alcohol intake in last 30 days was 17.8 ± 20 units in ET patients and 16.5 ± 16 units in controls. No signs of alcohol dependency were recorded in any of the patient or control subjects. The levels of blood-borne biomarkers tended to be higher in the ET than in controls, but the difference was only significant for carbohydrate-deficient-transferrin (CDT) (P < 0.05, corrected), with mean CDT in the ET group found to be 2.22 ± 0.7% and in controls 1.78 ± 0.8%. A significant correlation was found between CDT levels and self-reported alcohol intake in patients but not in controls (ρ = 0.366, P < 0.01). A relationship between urinary ethyl-glucuronide and self-reported alcohol intake was found in both the ET (F = 19.865, P = 0.000) and control (F = 4.422, P = 0.020) groups. No other significant correlations between clinical and laboratory parameters were found.Conclusion. Our data do not reflect a higher incidence of alcoholism in patients with ET. Their alcohol intake is well controlled and does not exceed the limits of healthy social drinking.ACKNOWLEDGEMENTSGrant support from the Czech Ministry of Education, MSM0021620849, the Czech Ministry of Health, IGA NS10336-3. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] |
