The Establishment Of The Model Of Chronic Alcoholic Myopathy In Rats

Alcohol abuse is a social problem, ethanol can cause damages of many organs. It has been estimated that 30-60% of all alcoholics exhibit skeletal muscle disease, so we should pay more attention to the disease. Yet there are few domestic reports associated with chronic alcoholic myopathy probably because of lacking a suitable animal model. Objective Alcohol is administered intragastrically to rats by gavage to build up an animal model of chronic alcoholic myopathy. Methods The treated rats are given alcohol, the control rats are treated with sucrose of equal calories with the alcohol for 10 weeks, at the same time, they are feeding the same improved food with high fats and sufficient nutrients, then the skeletal muscles from the rats are analysed by histopathologic and electromicroscopic studies. A quantitative analysis is carried out in protein and DNA in the muscles. Results The Ⅱ-type fibers of treated rats become atrophy obviously, the shapes of the fibers become triangle or irregular, little necrosis of the fibers is observed. There are significant differences between the control and treated groups: the weight(g) of the Ⅱ-type predominant muscle-plantaris (0.45±0.03 vs 0.36±0.01, p=0.004), the weight(g) of the rats(408.50±9.03 vs 342.13±10.52, p=0.007), the total protein(mg) of the plantaris (133.48±2.32 vs 126.55±1.10, p=0.007)and DNA(μg) of the plantaris(325.69±11.95 vs 312.59±8.11, p=0.020). Yet there are no changes in soleus between the two groups. There are no significant differences of the content of creatine kinase between the two groups. Conclusions It suggested that the method of giving alcohol intragastricly to the rats is a suitable way to establish the model of chronic alcoholic myopathy, and it is helpful to study the disease.