Chronic Alcoholic Skeletal Myopathy: An Overview

Abstract

It has long been recognised that chronic alcohol abusers have defects in skeletal muscle physiology and function; the most salient manifestation of which is muscle weakness. Hitherto, most of the detailed investigations into alcoholic muscle disease have concentrated on the “acute” forms of the disease process. In contrast, very little work has been carried out on the “chronic” alcoholic myopathy. Detailed studies by various research groups, including our own, have shown that the chronic form of alcoholic muscle disease occurs very much more frequently than the acute type, and may, indeed, be one of the most common metabolic myopathies in Western societies. It occurs in approximately half to two-thirds of chronic alcohol abusers (Worden, 1976; Martin et al., 1985; Urbano-Marquez et al., 1988). Thus, it is somewhat of a paradox that chronic alcoholic myopathy is one of the least researched muscle diseases, even though the causal agent is known. Furthermore, it is likely that the underlying molecular events responsible for the loss of skeletal muscle mass may be applicable to other forms of metabolic myopathy.