[Alcohol and drug interactions]

Abstract

Alcohol metabolism occurs mainly in the liver, where in abstainers the alcoholdehydrogenase (ADH) pathway plays the major role. After chronic alcohol consumption, the microsomal ethanol-oxidizing system (MEOS), involving the ethanol-inducible cytochrome P450 2E1, increases in importance with a four- to ten-fold increase in the contribution to alcohol metabolism. Because of the fact that this enzyme system catalyses not only the metabolism of ethanol but also activates a great number of drugs, it is a very common site of alcohol-drug interactions. Clinically relevant interactions will be discussed. Only a small amount of alcohol is metabolized outside the liver, mainly in the stomach by gastric ADH, which leads to the so-called first-pass metabolism of ethanol. Its significance in alcohol metabolism is reviewed. The only way to prevent severe alcohol-drug interactions is to make medical doctors as well as their patients more aware of these possible secondary effects.