Why the study?
Does excessive alcohol consumption produce electrocardiogram changes in chronic alcoholic patients without organic heart disease?
Does excessive alcohol consumption produce electrocardiogram changes in chronic alcoholic patients without organic heart disease?
Acute alcohol intoxication in chronic alcoholics without underlying heart disease frequently causes sinus tachycardia and nonspecific T-wave changes on ECG.
These ECG changes should not alter acute management; cross-sectional data leave open direct causality and reversibility for prospective study.
The electrocardiograms of 1,000 chronic alcoholic patients were examined and analyzed. Evidence is presented that excessive consumption of alcohol, in the absence of organic heart disease, may produce changes in the electrocardiogram. The predominant abnormalities were sinus tachycardia and nonspecific T-wave changes. These abnormalities were present in the majority of the patients, provided that electrocardiograms were taken while the patients were still intoxicated. It is suggested that the changes are caused by two known effects of alcohol: stimulation of catecholamine secretion from the adrenal medulla and alteration of cell membrane permeability.
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George Sereny (1971) studied this question.
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