The results showed that the body weight of control isoproteic rat significantly increased, while the alcohol isoproteic rats showed no difference in body weight and the control hypoproteic and alcohol hypoproteic showed significant decrease in body weight. The ultrastructure results showed slight dilatation of rough endoplasmic reticulum (rER) and vacuolation of cytoplasm in CH rats while in AI and AH rats there was increase of mitochondria with swelling and degeneration of some of them, dilatation of rER, vacuolation of cytoplasm and decrease zymogene granules, these results were more marked in AH which showed hyperchromasia of some nuclei with irregularity of others. These changes indicated that alcohol is the main cause of the ultrastructure changes found in the pancreatic acinar cells while variations in the amount of protein intake appear to act as one of the confounding factors which increase the pathological risk of long-term heavy ethanol drinking |
