title: The alcoholic cardiomyopathies--genuine and pseudo.
abstract: Two types of genuine alcoholic cardiomyopathies can produce congestive heart failure, an acute fulminate hyperkinetic type with high cardiac output and a hypokinetic type with a low cardiac output, both of which respond to thiamine. When the chronic alcoholic develops a dilated cardiomyopathy with congestive heart failure without a history of significant malnutrition, then they do not respond to thiamine. This may be explained by a study in which mice given a myotropic virus plus alcohol developed more frequent and severe viral cardiomyopathies than those not fed alcohol. This suggests that a chronic dilated cardiomyopathy in an alcoholic may not be the direct result of the alcohol but secondary to a viral myocarditis. This suggests that the preferred terminology for a dilated cardiomyopathy in an alcoholic who does not respond to thiamine and good nutrition should simply be a dilated cardiomyopathy in an alcoholic. We should assume that the cardiomyopathy is possibly of viral etiology.
authors.affiliation: Department of Medicine, State University of New York at Buffalo, NY, USA.
authors.forename: J
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Constant
mesh_terms: D000208:Acute Disease; D000818:Animals; D002310:Cardiomyopathy, Alcoholic / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000188:drug therapy; D002311:Cardiomyopathy, Dilated / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000188:drug therapy; D002908:Chronic Disease; D003937:Diagnosis, Differential; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D051379:Mice; D009205:Myocarditis / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000821:virology; D013831:Thiamine / Q000008:administration & dosage
chemical_list: D013831:Thiamine