title: Fatty acid ethyl esters in adipose tissue. A laboratory marker for alcohol-related death.
abstract: Fatty acid ethyl esters, a family of ethanol metabolites, are formed by esterification of ethanol with fatty acids and have been detected in human organs commonly damaged by ethanol abuse. Because alcohol-related deaths may occur up to six times as often as reported on death certificates, we undertook quantitation of these potentially longer-lived alcohol metabolites in postmortem human adipose tissue to assess their usefulness as a measure of recent ethanol exposure. After isolation and identification using sequential thin-layer and gas chromatography, fatty acid ethyl esters were present in adipose tissue of chronic alcoholics (mean +/- SEM equals 300 +/- 46 nmol/g), even though blood ethanol concentration at the time of death was undetectable. Unintoxicated nonalcoholic subjects who had no history of alcohol abuse had concentrations seven times lower (mean +/- SEM equals 43 +/- 13 nmol/g). In vitro studies demonstrate that fatty acid ethyl esters are synthesized by human adipose tissue in proportion to the ethanol concentration present and their half-life in adipose tissue of laboratory animals is 16 +/- 1.6 hours, ie, fourfold greater than that of alcohol. These results indicate that fatty acid ethyl esters are long-lived ethanol metabolites whose persistence and accumulation in adipose tissue may allow an accurate diagnosis of significant alcohol consumption even when ethanol has been completely eliminated from the body.
authors.affiliation: Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, University of Pennsylvania, School of Medicine, Philadelphia.
authors.forename: E A
authors.initials: EA
authors.lastname: Laposata
authors.forename: D E
authors.initials: DE
authors.lastname: Scherrer
authors.forename: L G
authors.initials: LG
authors.lastname: Lange
mesh_terms: D000273:Adipose Tissue / Q000378:metabolism*; D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D000437:Alcoholism / Q000378:metabolism; D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D004951:Esterification; D000431:Ethanol / Q000378:metabolism*; D005227:Fatty Acids / Q000378:metabolism*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007223:Infant; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged
chemical_list: D005227:Fatty Acids; D000431:Ethanol