Is there a relationship between somatic and autonomic neuropathies in chronic alcoholics?

Alcoholic neuropathy

“…Unlike these neuropathies, however, autonomic symptoms are not conspicuous in alcoholic neuropathy [4,5,25]. Although both sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems are involved, the latter is affected more frequently [10,[25][26][27][28]. A previous report has suggested a relationship between autonomic and somatic neuropathies [29], while recent reports hypothesized that autonomic dysfunction does not invariably coexist with somatic neuropathy [27,28].…”

“…Although both sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems are involved, the latter is affected more frequently [10,[25][26][27][28]. A previous report has suggested a relationship between autonomic and somatic neuropathies [29], while recent reports hypothesized that autonomic dysfunction does not invariably coexist with somatic neuropathy [27,28]. Whether autonomic dysfunction in alcoholic neuropathy is a continuum of the symptoms associated with small-fiber involvement or is partly attributable to central dysfunction has yet to be determined.…”

Alcohol-induced autonomic dysfunction: a systematic review

“…Of the six studies to consider TLDE a risk factor, four reported that long-term alcohol abusers with evidence of cardiovascular autonomic dysfunction had a significantly higher TLDE than those without [2,25,29,38]. Two of these only identified a correlation with results from deep breathing tests [25,29], and one found a correlation only with heart rate and blood pressure responses to standing [2]. The final paper did not identify a correlation with any specific investigation of cardiovascular autonomic dysfunctions [38].…”

“…A total of 35 papers commented on this relationship. The majority conclude that autonomic dysfunction and alcohol-related peripheral neuropathy can occur concurrently [2,5,8,9,11,12,21,22,25,26,28,29,33,36,38,40,49,52,[58][59][60]. The largest study reporting alcohol-related large fibre peripheral neuropathy in the context of autonomic dysfunction was done by Monforte et al which recruited 107 alcohol abusers; 41% of patients with large fibre neuropathy defined by electrophysiological criteria had autonomic dysfunction, while 15% of patients without peripheral neuropathy had autonomic dysfunction [29].…”

“…Chronic, excessive alcohol consumption is known to relate to diseases of both the central and peripheral nervous system. Such manifestations include dementia, delirium tremens, peripheral neuropathy and autonomic neuropathy [1,2]. With respect to somatic and autonomic nervous damage, it is currently unclear whether the cause of dysfunction is the toxic impact of ethanol itself, or other confounding factors.…”