National health care cost for osteoporotic women is estimated to be 5 billion dollars annually and nearly a third of the elderly female population is affected. Alcohol consumption has been known to be a significant contributing factor to osteoporosis and bone loss since the work of Saville in 1965. Most studies have been conducted on patients admitted for alcohol rehabilitation and are of different, ages, sexes, and lengths of drinking history and except for very short term projects, are very difficult to properly control. Some have stopped drinking for various periods of time prior to the project, others frequently have various stages of liver disease, and controls include persons with unknown alcohol intake; all leading to conflicting results and demonstrating 2 need for an animal model system in which to study these effects in a more controlled environment. Prior studies of the effect of alcohol on bone have fairly clearly demonstrated the induction of an osteopenia which appears similar to postmenopausal osteoporosis but possibly develops by a different mechanism. This proposal proposes to use a rat model for a series of rigorously controlled histomorphometry studies of the effects of alcohol consumption on bone and on mineral metabolism and more specifically on the development and severity of postmenopausal osteopenia. Specific objectives are to determine the life-long consequence of ethanol consumption on bone- growth in the young, maintenance in middle age, and bone loss rate in the elderly and to determine the consequence of long-term ethanol consumption on the severity and the rate of formation of ovariectomy induced osteopenia in the rat model.
