Abstract :
Around the world more and more people suffer from alcoholism. Addiction problems, alcoholism and excessive use of drugs both medical and nonmedical, are major causes of liver and kidney damage in adults . The purpose of this study was to investigate on the protective role of zinc sulphate on liver and kidney in rats with acute alcoholism. Wistar albino rats were divided into four groups. Group I; control group, groupII; given only Zinc Sulphate (100 mg/kg/day for 3days), group III; rats given absolute ethanol (1 ml of absolute ethanol administrated by gavage technique to each rat),group IV given Zinc sulphate prior to the administration of absolute ethanol. The results of this study revealed that acute ethanol exposure caused degenerative morphological changes in the liver and kidney. Significant difference were found in the levels of serum, liver, kidney super oxide dismutase(SOD) , catalase (CAT) , nitric oxide(NO), and malondialdehyde (MDA) in the ethanol group compared to the control group. Moreover ,serum urea, creatnine, uric acid, alkaline phoshpatase and transaminases activities (GOT GPT) were increased in the ethanol group compared to the control group. On the other hand, administration of zinc sulphate in the ethanol group caused a significant decrease in the degenerative changes, lipid peroxidation, antioxidant enzymes, and nitric oxide in serum, liver, and kidney. It can be concluded that zinc Sulphate has a protective role on the ethanol induced liver and kidney injury. In addition, nitric oxide is involved in the mechanism of acute alcohol intoxication.
