Danel Thierry, Touitou Yvan
Service d'Addictologie, CHRU de Lille, 59037 Lille cedex, France.
Alcohol Alcohol. 2006 Jul-Aug;41(4):386-90. doi: 10.1093/alcalc/agl036. Epub 2006 May 5.
Alcohol intake alters melatonin secretion both in healthy volunteers and in alcoholics in a variety of different situations (while drinking, during or after withdrawal, and with neurological complications). This alteration may reduce secretion or affect its circadian rhythm, thus causing daytime secretion in some alcoholics. We sought to determine if daytime melatonin secretion is caused directly by acute alcohol consumption or if it instead indicates a change in circadian synchronization. Because alcohol consumption as it occurs in alcoholics (continuous consumption of large amounts) has never been examined in healthy volunteers, we exposed 11 healthy volunteers to 256 g of alcohol over 24 h to study the circadian profiles of melatonin secretion. Our results demonstrate a lack of daytime secretion in our subjects. This suggests that the disordered circadian melatonin secretion seen in alcoholics indicates a shift in melatonin secretion rather than an acute effect of alcohol on this secretion, or alternatively, that it is a direct effect of chronic rather than acute exposure to high blood alcohol levels.
在各种不同情况下（饮酒时、戒断期间或之后以及伴有神经并发症时），饮酒都会改变健康志愿者和酗酒者体内褪黑素的分泌。这种改变可能会减少分泌或影响其昼夜节律，从而导致一些酗酒者在白天分泌褪黑素。我们试图确定白天褪黑素分泌是由急性饮酒直接引起的，还是相反，它表明昼夜同步发生了变化。由于从未在健康志愿者身上研究过酗酒者饮酒时（持续大量饮酒）的情况，我们让11名健康志愿者在24小时内摄入256克酒精，以研究褪黑素分泌的昼夜变化情况。我们的结果表明，我们的受试者在白天没有分泌褪黑素。这表明，酗酒者中出现的昼夜褪黑素分泌紊乱表明褪黑素分泌发生了变化，而不是酒精对这种分泌的急性影响，或者说，这是慢性而非急性暴露于高血酒精水平的直接影响。
