Our purpose was to investigate whether alcohol (ethanol) consumption could have an influence on the metabolism of acrylamide to glycidamide in humans exposed to acrylamide through food. We studied a subsample from a population-based case-control study of prostate cancer in Sweden (CAPS). Questionnaire data for alcohol intake estimates was compared to the ratio of hemoglobin-adduct levels for acrylamide and glycidamide, used as a measure of individual differences in metabolism. Data from 161 non-smoking men were processed with regard to the influence of alcohol on the metabolism of acrylamide to glycidamide. A negative, linear trend of glycidamide-adduct to acrylamide-adduct-level ratios with increasing alcohol intake was observed and the strongest association (p-value for trend=0.02) was obtained in the group of men with the lowest adduct levels (47 pmol/g globin) when alcohol intake was stratified by acrylamide-adduct levels. The observed trend is likely due to a competitive effect between ethanol and acrylamide as both are substrates for cytochrome P450 2E1. Our results, strongly indicating that ethanol influence metabolism of acrylamide to glycidamide, partly explain earlier observations of only low to moderate associations between questionnaire data on dietary acrylamide intake and hemoglobin-adduct levels.
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