Reevaluation of the disulfiram-alcohol reaction in man.

Abstract

Alcoholics (14) were given 800 mg or 100 mg of disulfiram daily for 3 days or no disulfiram. On the next day they drank 350 ml of beer, and the disulfiram-alcohol reaction (DAR) was measured. The DAR after 800 mg of disulfiram were of varying intensity, which correlated with the blood acetaldehyde concentrations. These correlated with diastolic blood pressure, systolic blood pressure, pH, p[partial pressure]CO2 and plasma K. Before ethanol intake the extent of the change of blood pH caused by disulfiram correlated with the decrease in diastolic and systolic blood pressure during the DAR. Patients with high dopamine-.beta.-hydroxylase (DBH) activity experienced a sharper drop in blood pressure during the DAR than did those with low DBH activity, the correlations between DBH activity and blood pressure during the DAR being .872 (systolic) and .737 (diastolic). There were no significant differences between the patients given 100 mg of disulfiram and controls.