Neuromuscular disorders in chronic alcohol intoxication

Abstract

The paper reviews the present-day Russian and foreign literature on neuromuscular disorders in chronic alcohol intoxication. The most common manifestations of alcohol disease include alcoholic polyneuropathy (PNP) and alcohol-induced skeletal muscle injury. The clinical polymorphism of alcoholic PNP is discussed. The paper considers a chronic sensory automatic form due to the direct toxic effects of ethanol and its metabolites during long-term alcohol intoxication, as well as acute/subacute sensorimotor neuropathy, the basis for the pathogenesis of which is B group vitamins, predominantly thiamine, deficiency that develops in the presence of drinking bouts concurrent with malnutrition and/or alcohol-related gastrointestinal tract diseases. In addition to nonuse of alcohol and a properly balanced diet, antioxidant therapy with alphalipoic acid and neurotropic B group vitamins is considered to be pathogenetic therapy for neuropathy. The most common and least studied clinical form of alcohol-induced musculoskeletal injury is chronic alcoholic myopathy (AM), the diagnostic standard for which is morphometric and immunohistochemical examination of a muscle biopsy specimen. The morphological base for this form of myopathy is predominantly type 2 muscle fiber atrophy caused by impaired protein synthesis and a decreased regenerative potential of muscle fiber. The efficacy of antioxidants and leucine-containing amino acid mixtures in the treatment of chronic AM is discussed.