The effects of ethanol upon hydric balance and arterial pressure in rats: Folic acid as a possible hypotensor

Heavy Alcohol Consumption Effects on Blood Pressure and on Kidney Structure Persist After Long-Term Withdrawal

“…The blood alcohol concentrations presented herein are comparable to those previously observed in human [40] and in rats [13, 14, 30, 38, 40]. Our results also show that ET rats ingested less liquid and had lighter kidneys than Control rats, corroborating a previous study that showed that ethanol consumption induces a decrease of urine volume and liquid intake [6]. Similarly to other reports [18, 23], our results show that ethanol consumption induced no changes in the relative kidney weight.…”

“…The high serum albumin levels found can be ascribed to the effects of ethanol consumption on dehydration. These results are in line with earlier studies that have shown the effects of ethanol consumption on kidney dysfunction [6] and can be a risk factor for the development of albuminuria [17] and kidney injury [10, 15, 23]. Furthermore, high serum levels of uric acid have been associated with both hypertension and proteinuria, afferent arteriolopathy and glomerulosclerosis [10, 45], and can predict the development of chronic kidney disease [46].…”

“…However, our results extend these observations by showing an increase of absolute kidney weight in the withdrawn animals, suggesting that this recovery may be related with an increase of liquid intake. Together, these findings indicate that the long-term ethanol consumption alters hydric balance [6], which could be partially reversed by withdrawal. It was shown that moderate ethanol consumption for 15 weeks does not change matrix protein production in glomerulofibrosis [29], but heavy ethanol consumption for 6 and 12 weeks induced tubular necrosis [16] and hypertrophy and degeneration of the epithelia of the renal tubules [15].…”

“…Among the modifiable risk factors for the development of hypertension, heavy ethanol consumption is considered as one of the most relevant unhealthy lifestyle pattern [3, 4], and data from epidemiologic, clinical and experimental studies have provided a compelling link between these two conditions [4-10]. Although it is widely known that heavy ethanol consumption has hypertensive effects [4-13] and can induce impairment of several organs [6, 10-16], its effects on kidney structure and function remain to be elucidated [16-18]. Moreover, very few clinical and experimental studies evaluated BP alterations underlying alcohol withdrawal and particularly after acute withdrawal [19, 20], but there are no follow up studies in the absence of alcohol consumption, specifically its consequences on BP and kidney structure.…”

“…Moreover, there is evidence that the pathological activation of the intrarenal RAS enhances oxidative stress [2, 27, 28] and promotes kidney injury, namely of glomeruli, tubules and vasculature [22, 24, 28]. Data regarding the effects of ethanol consumption on kidney structure and function is divergent, probably due to differences in the amount of ethanol consumed in the several studies [6, 15-17, 29]. It is possible that, alongside the systemic hypertensive effects, heavy ethanol consumption may also impair kidney structure and function, therefore contributing to the maintenance of hypertension.…”