Increased urinary excretion and prolonged turnover time of folic acid during ethanol ingestion

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Abstract
The effect of ethanol on the kinetics of folic acid urinary excretion was studied in five chronic alcoholic patients who were maintained in a folate replete state. For 17 days, 95% ethanol was administered orally at 2-h intervals (×9). The folate pool(s) were labeled with the tritium labeled pteroyl glutamic acid at the start of the period of ethanol ingestion and at the start of a control abstinent period. The 24-h urine volume did not change with consumption of ethanol. Total urinary folate excretion was significantly greater by 20 to 40% in four of five patients during the ethanol administration period (p < 0.05). The fall-off in urinary radioactivity corrected for total folate excretion (dpm/µg Lactobacillus casei folate) was resolved into a biexponential decay with two distinct slopes. Ethanol caused the slope of the second component to flatten significantly with mean t1/2 of 63.7 days on ethanol versus 9.6 days off (p < 0.05). These kinetic results are consistent with the known interference by ethanol of folate utilization in a functional tissue pool.