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Significant Increase of Blood Alcohol by Cimetidine after Repetitive Drinking of Small Alcohol Doses
Author(s) -
Gupta Anand M.,
Baraona Enrique,
Lieber Charles S.
Publication year - 1995
Publication title -
alcoholism: clinical and experimental research
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.267
H-Index - 153
eISSN - 1530-0277
pISSN - 0145-6008
DOI - 10.1111/j.1530-0277.1995.tb00993.x
Subject(s) - cimetidine , alcohol , ethanol , ethanol metabolism , medicine , alcohol tolerance , metabolism , pharmacokinetics , oral administration , blood alcohol , chemistry , poison control , biochemistry , injury prevention , environmental health
To assess effects of repetitive alcohol drinking and pre‐existing first‐pass metabolism on the cimetidine induced increase in blood alcohol concentrations, 20 healthy men (aged 20 to 40) of varied ethnicity and consuming less than 60 g alcohol per week underwent baseline quantitation of first‐pass metabolism of alcohol. This was followed by oral administration of 0.6 g/kg ethanol given postprandially in 3 to 4 drinks spread over 135 min, before and after cimetidine (400 mg twice a day for 7 days). Blood alcohol concentrations were determined by breath analysis. First‐pass metabolism was quantified by applying Michaelis‐Menten kinetics to blood alcohol curves after intravenous or oral administration of equal alcohol doses. At baseline, 15 subjects had a substantial first‐pass metabolism (over one sixth of the dose); their alcohol levels increased with repeated doses with a mean peak of 27 ± 3 mg/dl before and 39 ± 5 after cimetidine ( P < 0.01), an effect much greater and longer than after a single alcohol dose. Three subjects exceeded 50 mg/dl, the legal limit for driving in several countries. By contrast, in the five subjects with minimal first‐pass metabolism, cimetidine did not increase alcohol levels. Thus, under conditions mimicking social drinking, cimetidine increased blood alcohol to concentrations known to impair psychomotor skills and they persisted at those levels over prolonged periods of time. In a minority of subjects, no such interaction was found, but their first‐pass metabolism at baseline was absent or minimal and thus no inhibition by the drug was to be expected.