Alcohol-related deaths - a retrospective study from the region of northern Slovakia.

The study of cases with post mortem blood ethanol concentration of 2.00 g/kg and higher was performed at the Institute of Forensic Medicine in Martin, covering the region of North Slovakia. The aim of the study was to quantify the fatal consequences of acute ethanol administration reflecting in the annual mortality range, establish the causes of death, age and gender distribution of the deceased population, place and time parameters of deaths.

[Alcohol congeners and their implications for medicolegal assessment of drunkeness].

Unlabelled: Ethanol is the main psychoactive ingredient of alcoholic beverages. Together with water it makes their major part. The other substances contained in alcoholic beverages are called congeners.

Ethanol-induced ketoacidosis as a possible neglected cause of sudden death in chronic alcohol consumers.

Unlabelled: Alcohol accounts for a great amount of deaths per year either due to the acute intoxication or due to the secondary impacts of acute or chronic alcoholism. Commonly, in large amount of such fatal cases blood alcohol concentration is low or absent and fatty liver disease is frequently the only pathological finding detected at the autopsy of alcohol consumer. We offer a short case report of a case with the following analysis of why we decided to consider alcoholic ketoacidosis in our differential diagnosis.

Gender differences in alcohol affection on an individual.

Unlabelled: It is a well-known fact that after drinking the same amount of alcohol, women show more signs of the effects of alcohol than men of the same weight. It seems that the main factors responsible for sex differences in alcohol metabolism and influence are the relatively lower amount of body water related to body fat in women than men and lower gastric ADH activity in women, both of which enable women to reach higher BAC after drinking equivalent amounts of alcohol with men. On the other hand, first-pass metabolism of alcohol during passing through the liver is more rapid in women, probably due to bigger liver mass in women than in men.