Possible cardiovascular hazards of the alcohol-calcium carbimide interaction.

Healthy volunteers taking ethanol after pretreatment with calcium carbimide, a drug commonly used in treatment of alcoholism, were studied by echocardiography. Marked facial flushing and accumulation of acetaldehyde after ethanol were accompanied by circulatory acceleration corresponding in magnitude to at least moderate physical exercise. The heart rate (+/- SD) rose from 58 +/- 6 to 107 +/- 11 beats/min (p less than .001) the cardiac output from 4.1 +/- 0.6 to 9.4 +/- 1.1 L/min (p less than .001), and the ejection fraction from 70 +/- 3 to 89 +/- 2% (p less than .001). The systolic blood pressure rose initially from 121 +/- 6 to 143 +/- 5 mmHg (p less than .001). The diastolic blood pressure declined from 80 +/- 0 to 51 +/- 13 mmHg (p less than .01), and the estimated peripheral resistance to one-third of its preethanol level (p less than .001). These marked cardiovascular changes suggest that the ethanol-calcium carbimide interaction can be hazardous to alcoholics with ischaemic or other forms of myocardial diseases.