Comparative Safety Profiles of Pure and Alcohol Beverages in Wistar Rats

Objective: Alcohol consumption is readily acceptable worldwide, and despite warnings and billions of dollars spent yearly on its deleterious effects; people still to the present day take copious amounts of it. The study investigated the comparative effects of pure and alcoholic beverages on Wistar rats to ascertain their level of safety.

Methods: Thirty five male albino Wistar rats divided into 7 groups, were administered daily (v/v) pure and beverage alcohol comprising of; 5% (v/v) ethanol, 5.1% beer; 15% (v/v) ethanol, 13% red wine; and 40% (v/v) ethanol, 40% spirit; while the control group was administered saline, by intra-gastric route (IG) for 28 days. On the 29th day, the animals were sacrificed and blood collected for biochemical analysis. The rat brain, liver, kidney and lungs were excised for histopathological examinations and aliquots of the beverage alcohols were subjected to Gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS) analysis.

Results: The activity of ALT was not significantly different in treatment groups when compared with controls. The GGT and AST activities of the treatment groups were significantly increased (p<0.05). The rat organ photomicrographs showed that the lungs was most adversely affected, followed by the liver, kidney and brain. The GC-MS chromatograms of the respective beverages contained the following: beer 19, red wine 10 and spirit 16 constituents.

Conclusion: The plasma ALT, AST, GGT activities however, did not indicate excess alcohol consumption in the animals although unusual values were observed. The histological profile on the rat organs showed that there was some form of organ damage implying that these beverages may be injurious to health. In addition, the GC-MS spectroscopy revealed that these alcoholic beverages had different proportions of the chemical constituents which may portend some futuristic threat to health.