The effects of alcohol and smoking on serum, saliva, and urine sialic acid levels

OBJECTIVE: To investigate the effect of smoking and alcohol on serum, saliva, and urine total sialic acid (TSA) levels, and on serum gamma-glutamyltransferase (GGT), aspartate aminotransferase (AST), and alanine aminotransferase (ALT) enzyme activities.

METHODS: Serum, urine and saliva samples obtained from smokers, drinkers, and nonsmokers-nondrinkers (control) subjects. Total sialic acid was measured with the Warren's colorimetric method, modified by Ponnio et al. The study was performed at the Department of Chemistry, Division of Biochemistry, University of Kahramamaras Sutcu Imam, Turkey, in 2002.

RESULTS: Serum and saliva TSA levels of alcohol drinkers and serum TSA levels of smokers were higher than those in control subjects. Urine TSA levels were much higher in alcohol drinkers than those in healthy subjects and smokers. Serum GGT activities were high in smokers and alcohol drinkers and there was no statistically significant difference in serum AST levels between smokers and non-smokers and also serum AST levels were higher in alcohol drinkers than those in control subjects and smokers. Serum ALT levels were higher in smokers and alcohol drinkers than those in controls.

CONCLUSION: Our results indicate that serum TSA were affected by, and possibly related to, smoking, and that serum GGT, AST, ALT and serum TSA can be used as a marker for monitoring of alcohol abuse. Our study indicate that urine, and saliva TSA can be used as non-invasive markers for alcohol abuse. However, further studies are necessary to evaluate the concentrations of TSA on a greater number of serum, saliva, and urine samples from smokers and drinkers.