A statistically significant fast decrease of GLDH serum activity after a break in alcohol consumption has been confirmed. It is estimated that increased GLDH activity in the sera of alcohol dependents and its fast decrease after total abstinence has been restored are specific for alcohol addiction.

GLDH is an equally accurate marker of alcoholism in comparison to others, if its significantly faster decrease is taken into consideration. We strongly believe that watching changes in the activity of laboratory markers of alcoholism is an effective yet overlooked aid.

No abstract

Alcoholism has a pronounced effect on people's mental and physical health. Glutamate dehydrogenase (GLDH) is a linking factor in metabolism of carbohydrates and proteins. It is an enzyme of mitochondrial matrix, but it is also found in rough endoplasmic reticulum. There is few relevant data about the role of GLDH in leukocytes and the effect of alcohol on leukocytes so far.The aim of our study was to define GLDH activity in leukocytes under and after alcohol consumption, what can give us indirect data about protein metabolism in leukocytes.We developed our own method to define GLDH activity and established our own reference activities for GLDH in leukocytes which were from 0.05 - 1.17 μkat/g protein.Our research has been done on 142 healthy subjects and 113 alcoholics having consumed alcohol within last 48 hours.Mean catalytic activity in healthy subjects was 0.5649 μkat/g protein. Mean catalytic GLDH activity in alcoholics increased from 0.5042 μkat/g to 0.6696 μkat/g after 24 - 48 hours to 0.6974 μkat/g after 48 - 72 hours of abstinence. We found a statistically significant increase (p = 0.012) in GLDH activity after 48-72 hours of abstinence.It is possible to conclude that under the influence of alcohol the leukocyte GLDH activity in alcoholics is lower than in healthy subjects. Cessation of alcohol consumption has resulted in a statistically significant increase in leukocytes GDLH activity. Therefore, alcohol consumption results in reduction in GLDH activity as well as protein production and consecutively leads to diminished leukocytes protective ability.

This paper describes two case reports of bupropion-associated premature ejaculation. Two men (aged 37 and 39) were treated for residual symptoms of depression. At 300 mg / day of bupropion, they ejaculated in under a minute, compared to a normal time of three to four minutes. This was present for several months. With the 37-year-old man, the time normalized after adding escitalopram. With the 39-year-old man, it spontaneously increased to two minutes after fi ve months. Although bupropion is reported to be free of sexual side eff ects, individual vulnerabilities should be considered. It is important to specifically question patients about sexual side eff ects.