ABSTRACT

Purpose:

To investigate the effects of alcohol consumption on rat brain choles-terol, triglyceride, and phospholipids levels.

Materials and methods:

The study was performed on 24 Sprague-Dawley rats of which 12 were selected as the control group and 12 as the alcohol group. Both groups were fed regular laboratory chow. In addition, the alcohol group rats were fed 15% (v/v) of ethanol in their drinking water for 2 months. Then, the rats were decapitated under ketamine anesthesia and the brain tissues were removed and homogenized in ice-cold 0.1 M phosphate buffer containing 1% digitonin. The tissues were centrifuged and brain cholesterol, triglyceride, and phospholipid levels of supernatants were measured using commercially avai-lable enzymatic kits.

Results:

Brain cholesterol, triglyceride, and phospholipid levels of the alcohol group were 29.36 ± 1.68, 39.81 ± 8.5, and 2.91 ± 0.82, respectively, whereas the same parameters of the control group were 22.58 ± 2.29, 32.57 ± 3.7, and 2.47 ± 0.64mg/ g protein, respectively. Brain cholesterol (p<0.001) and triglyceri-de (p<0.05) levels differed significantly between the groups whereas phospho-lipid levels did not

Conclusion:

The effects of alcohol on brain cholesterol and triglyceride levels may result in significant disturbances in brain functions. The underlying mec-hanism of this finding is not known and needs to be investigated further.