Gastric emptying and first-pass metabolism of ethanol in elderly subjects with and without atrophic gastritis

Background: Oral ethanol intake results in lower blood ethanol concentrations than intravenous administration of the same dose of ethanol. This first-pass metabolism is thought to be due to gastric metabolism of ethanol via alcohol dehydrogenase and also to hepatic first-pass metabolism. Methods: Since a loss of gastric mucosa may decrease first-pass metabolism of ethanol, this metabolism was studied in 10 elderly subjects (6 women and 4 men) with atrophic gastritis and bacterial overgrowth and in 17 control subjects with normal gastric secretory function. Atrophic gastritis was verified by means of the serum pepsinogen I to pepsinogen II ratio and the hypochlorhydria occurring after pentagastrin stimulation. Bacterial overgrowth was assessed by bacterial counts in gastric juice. The study was repeated after tetracycline treatment to decrease gastric bacteria. In addition, gastric emptying rates of ethanol solution with technetium-99m sulfur colloid were calculated from scintigraphic images. Furthermore, ...