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Hyperandrogenemia has been hypothesized to be a risk factor for coronary heart disease (CHD) in women. To test the hypothesis that testosterone is higher in women with diabetes, who have [...]

MOST CHRONIC alcoholics with active but uncomplicated cirrhosis demonstrate rapid improvement in their liver disease, in our experience, following hospitalization and consumption of an adequate diet. At times, however, acute severe hepatic functional impairment occurs, which may clear slowly or progress until the patient dies in hepatic coma. In this situation, the liver may show, in addition to fat and fibrosis, an extensive lesion characterized by hyaline degeneration and necrosis of parenchymal cells with leucocytic infiltration. This lesion, which was described by Mallory in 1911 1 and which occurs in varying degrees of severity in many alcoholics, is so distinctive that it was decided to determine further its clinical significance. To do this, the present study was carried out, in which the clinical and pathological findings relating to the liver in 56 chronic alcoholics were analyzed. It was found possible to divide these cases, according to histological findings, into two

Two patients demonstrated diabetes after the consumption of alcohol. Neither showed abnormality in glucose tolerance when abstinent. When the two patients were given alcohol by mouth in addition to a diet, in doses of 266 and 285 ml, respectively, over one day, they developed glucose intolerance. Four apparently healthy volunteers were similarly challenged with alcohol. One of these developed glucose intolerance. The glucose intolerance after alcohol administration was associated with an increase in the insulin response to glucose and a delay in the attainment of the peak insulin concentration. The effect of alcohol could not be attributed to its caloric value or to increased secretion of glucocorticoid or growth hormone. Two of the three subjects who responded to alcohol with glucose intolerance had close relatives with diabetes.