Abstract

Introduction: Alcohol abuse is one of the most common form of addiction prevalent all over the world. It affects all the major systems of the body. Consumption of alcohol in large amounts for a long duration produces toxic effects on liver, thus impairing the lipid metabolism, and hence alteration of serum lipid profile.

Objective: To study the association between amounts of alcohol consumed, tobacco usage and serum fasting lipid profile among alcoholics.

Methodology: We conducted a cross sectional study among alcoholics and smokers. Fasting lipid profile and other baseline investigations were done to study the association between alcohol consumption, tobacco usage and serum fasting lipid profile.

Results: In this study, a total of 40 males were studied, out of which 40 were alcoholics (duration of >5 years with >60ml/day of intake of alcohol) and smokers. The complete serum lipid profile were estimated. The Mean Triglycerides in alcoholics were found to be 182. The Mean Total Cholesterol and LDL-C were found to be 197.47 and 144. VLDL-C and HDL-C mean were 50.15 and 33.80 respectively. We found that the levels of serum TG, T Cholesterol, LDL-C and VLDL-C were raised in the alcoholics. But the HDL-C (good cholesterol) was found to be decreased in alcoholics. P value was found to be <0.05, which is highly significant.

Conclusion: Alcohol use was strongly associated with an deranged lipid profile predisposing to increased risk for cardiovascular diseases. Health promotion programmes should therefore be instituted at a much earlier stage in life to prevent development of diseases.

Keywords: total cholesterol, alcoholics, fasting lipid profile, cardiovascular diseases.