Sleep apnea and related disorders are not uncommon in abstinent alcoholics. We assessed the relationship between age and the presence and severity of sleep-disordered breathing in alcoholism by performing one night of polysomnography on 75 abstinent alcoholic subjects undergoing treatment for alcoholism. Sleep-disordered breathing (defined as 10 or more apneas plus hypopneas/hr of sleep) was pr...

PURPOSE In the course of a high-risk study for alcoholism, the middle-latency auditory evoked potentials (MAEPs) of children of alcoholics were explored. MATERIAL AND METHODS A series of auditory clicks (0.1 ms, 60 dB SL, 1.1/s) were used to record the Pa and Pb peaks of the MAEPs in 15 children of alcoholics with a multigenerational family history of alcoholism, and 17 control subjects, rang...

We investigated whether changes in memory or static balance in chronic alcoholics, occurring with abstinence or relapse, are associated with changes in lateral and fourth ventricular volume. Alcoholics meeting DSM-IV criteria for Alcohol Dependence (n=15) and non-alcoholic controls (n=26) were examined twice at a mean interval of 2 years with standard Wechsler Abbreviated Scale of Intelligence ...

Little is known about the broad-scale demographic characteristics of low income or indigent alcoholics in public hospital systems. The purpose of the study was to examine issues relative to age, race/ethnicity, and marital status for a large group (n = 62,829) of alcoholic men receiving inpatient care in Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) medical centers nationally. Subjects were VA inpatients...

AIM The present study was conducted to assess the activity of Gamma Glutamyl Transferase (GGT) and its association with oxidative stress in alcoholics. METHOD Sixty male alcoholics with a history of alcohol abuse for more than five years were the subjects of this study. Twenty healthy male volunteers who matched in age and the socio-economic status, served as the control subjects. RESULTS G...

This experiment investigated the validity of applying the stimulus-binding hypothesis of obesity to conceptualize drinking and task performance behaviors in alcoholics. Twenty alcoholics and 12 nonalcoholics participated in two counterbalanced experimental sessions. One session involved an assessment of subjects' voluntary consumption of preferred and nonpreferred nonalcoholic beverages. The ot...

Serum levels of prolactin (PRL) and Human Growth Hormone (HGH) were assayed in 38 male alcoholics and 24 male control subjects using radioimmunoassay (RIA) technique. Biochemical parameters of hepatic function and severity of withdrawal state were also assessed. Significantly elevated values of plasma HGH were found in alcoholics as a group. Nineteen percent and eight percent of the patient had...