[Effect of chronic alcohol consumption on blood lipid levels and angiopathy in diabetics].
It is known that chronic alcoholics and type II diabetics show hyperlipidemia, characterized by hypertriglyceridemia and in a minor degree by hypercholesterolemia. The mechanisms underlying the effect of ethanol and carbohydrates on plasma lipids seem to be different; therefore in diabetic subjects chronic alcohol consumption could produce a more severe hyperlipidemia and so accelerate atherosclerotic events. In order to verify it we have measured plasma cholesterol, HDL-cholesterol, and triglycerides and investigated the presence of micro- and macroangiopathy in two groups of non-insulin-dependent diabetics, differing each other for daily alcohol intake (18 chronic male alcoholics and 30 male subjects consuming respectively more than 150 g and less than 50 g of alcohol daily). In alcoholics, no clinical features, laboratory and echographic findings of cirrhosis and pancreatic disease were present. In order to avoid a possible interference of other factors on the metabolism of plasma lipids, in our study patients were selected with the following criteria: 1) only male subjects; 2) age 40-60 years; 3) nonsmokers; 4) moderate coffee drinkers; 5) average physical activity; 6) with BMI less than 28; 7) in good diabetic control (HbA1c less than 6%, n.v. 4.4%-5.6%); 8) normal kidney function (plasma creatinine less than 1.3 mg%) and 24 hr proteinuria absent;) 9) in treatment with diet alone or diet plus low doses of sulphonylureas or biguanides. The data were analyzed by Student's "t" and chi-squared tests. No significant differences could be detected (alcoholics/occasional drinkers, means +/- 1 SD) either in the plasma levels of cholesterol (181.7 +2- 39.3/198.2 +/- 32.5), HDL-cholesterol (43.4 +/- 12.7/38.5 +/- 11.9), and triglycerides (105.5 +/- 56.4/159.7 +/- 114.8) and in the frequency of micro (22.2%/16.6%) and macroangiopathy (16.6%/26.6%) between the two studied groups.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)