[Glutathione, a biochemical indicator for different types of cellular oxidative stress. II. Ethanol poisoning]

Eight male volunteers, all alcohol addicts selected from the patients of the Pădureni unit, deprived for a minimum of two weeks of alcohol, but with an at least 2-year history of alcohol addiction, received 0.5 ml absolute alcohol/kg body weight. Following dynamically the alteration of plasma reduced glutathione content, a significant increase (+8.27%) 30 minutes after alcohol ingestion and a decrease (-7.02%) before ingestion, as compared to plasma glutathione level in sex and age-matched clinically normal subject (100%) was noticed. The change in the --SH groups content in plasma after chronic alcohol ingestion leads to the occurrence of cell oxidative stress, as well as to a decreased resistance of hepatic cell and whole body as a result of the lipid peroxidation process and/or occurrence of detrimental reactive radical species, issuing from O2.