Abstract
INTRODUCTION: Alcohol biomarkers help in the early detection of alcoholism and its complications. There is a paucity of studies in India on the salivary markers of systemic diseases in general and on salivary alcohol biomarkers in particular. OBJECTIVES: The present study was aimed at assessing the effect of alcohol withdrawal on the antioxidants and amylase in blood and saliva, and at finding the correlation between the blood and the salivary parameters in alcoholics. METHODS: Sixty alcohol-dependent males who were in the age group of 30 - 70 years, who were admitted to the Deaddiction Centre for alcohol withdrawal treatment for one month, were the subjects of this study; age-matched healthy individuals were the controls. In the blood and saliva samples, the activities of Glutathione S-Transferase (GST) and amylase and the Total Antioxidant Capacity (TAC) were assayed. RESULTS: The alcohol-dependent subjects showed significantly lower GST and amylase activities and the TAC in blood and saliva as compared to those in the controls (P<0.001). The alcohol withdrawal caused a significant increase in the GST and amylase activities and the TAC to near-control values. In the alcohol-dependent subjects, there was a significant correlation between the values in blood and saliva with respect to GST and TAC. CONCLUSIONS: Alcoholism causes an impaired antioxidant capacity and a decreased secretion of amylase, which is ameliorated due to the alcohol withdrawal regimen . The strong correlation between blood and saliva with respect to the antioxidants suggests the potential future use of saliva as a laboratory tool in clinical medicine.