[Selected alcohols on the pro- and anti-oxidative processes in rat erythrocytes]

In forensic medicine practice poisonings are rather frequent, and among them, those caused by fatal "substitution" of ethyl alcohol. One of the most frequently encountered "substitutes" for ethyl alcohol is methanol. The purpose of our research was to determine the concentration of malonic dialdehyde as the expression of lipid peroxidation and antioxidant enzyme activity after dosed chronic ethyl and methyl alcohol intoxication. The experiment was conducted on approx. 6 month-old male inbred Lewis rats each weighing approx. 250 g. Ethanol and methanol solution was given in the concentration 1.0 M. The control group of rats received water. Each experimental group numbered 30 rats, this number was divided into three sub-groups, which were put-down at 4, 8 and 12 weeks. The activity of superoxide dismutase (CuZu-SOD) was determined by the Misra-Fridovich method, catalase (CAT) by the Beers-Sizer method. The concentration of malonic dialdehyde (MDA) was determined using the method of Placer et al. by assessing the concentration of TBARS compounds. Results are expressed as a mean +/- SD. The paired Student's test for small groups were used. Superoxide dismutase SOD1 activity decreased compared with the control group throughout the duration of the experiment from 2212 U/gHb to 1676 U/gHb for ethanol and from 2212 U/gHb to 945 U/gHb for methanol. Catalase activity for methanol decreased from 9.1 U/gHb to 5.1 U/gHb, for ethanol to 7.4 U/gHb. In the 4th week of the experiment increase of malonyl dialdehyde concentration for methanol group was observed--from 0.14 umol/gHb to 0.34 umol/Hb; after 8th weeks it decreased to 0.2 umol/gHb and in the 12th week increased to 0.23 umol/gHb. For ethanol these changes was less visible and reached the level of 0.24 umol/l. The statistical processing of the results was performed on the basis of parametric tests (the t-Student test for small experiments) and computer software Statistica. The statistical significance was set for p<0.05.