A clinical profile of alcoholic subjects in south western Karnataka, India

Alcoholism or alcohol use disorder is a broad term for problems with ethanol and generally referred as alcohol addiction. In the present study, the samples from alcoholic patients admitted to the study center were analyzed for liver function, biochemical and hematological tests. The results indicate a significant elevation in SGOT (72%) and SGPT (31%) indicating the liver damage or liver cirrhosis. Apart from this there was an elevation in ALP (20%), total bilirubin (40%), ESR (90%) and MCV (40%). The history of patients reveals that all of them were regular users of alcoholic beverages for long period of time and more than 85% of these individuals have other types of addictions also such as smoking, chewing tobacco and gutka apart from long period of addiction to alcohol. Further studies are needed to correlate these results with duration of addiction and effect of other co-addictions apart from alcoholism.