Endocrine and hemodynamic effects of stress versus systemic CRF in alcoholics during early and medium term abstinence.

What Was Tested

Researchers studied Corticotropin-Releasing Hormone in this randomized controlled trial publication.

Moreover, studies using intravenous (i.v.) corticotropin releasing factor (CRF) to assess neuroendocrine function bypass the hypothalamic component of the HPA axis.

Why It Was Studied

In alcoholics, disturbances of the autonomic nervous system as well as of the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis (HPA) are known.

However, these two systems have never been analyzed, under stimulated conditions, in parallel in the same patients.

Who Took Part

The age groups tagged for this paper are adults and middle-aged adults, men only.

How the Study Was Run

The design is described as randomized and parallel-group.

The participants were allocated by chance, so the Corticotropin-Releasing Hormone group and the comparison group should start out alike.

Groups ran in parallel: each of the participants stayed in one arm throughout.

What Was Measured

Therefore, i.v. human (h) CRF (pituitary stimulation/exogenous CRF) and a multifaceted stress test (hypothalamic activation/endogenous CRF) were compared with respect to their effects on hemodynamics as well as plasma norepinephrine (NE), epinephrine (E), ACTH, and cortisol in abstinent alcoholics (n = 11) versus healthy men (n = 10).

Each stimulus was tested twice, 12 weeks apart, in two separate experimental blocks (I and II).

PubMed files the paper under topics including Adrenocorticotropic Hormone, Alcohol Withdrawal Delirium, Alcoholism, Arousal, Autonomic Nervous System, Blood Pressure and Corticotropin-Releasing Hormone.

What This Means in Plain Language

The paper is a randomized and parallel-group study of Corticotropin-Releasing Hormone.

The publication is from 1997 (Alcoholism, clinical and experimental research), a journal based in England.

More context: all human trials.