Acute alcohol administration inhibits the refeeding response after starvation in rat skeletal muscle

1 Rowett Research Institute, Bucksburn, Aberdeen AB21 9SB; 2 Department of Agriculture and Forestry, University of Aberdeen, Aberdeen AB24 5UA; 3 Department of Nutrition and Dietetics, King's College London, London SE1 9NN; and 4 Department of Medicine, Guys, Kings and St. Thomas' School of Medicine, King's Denmark Hill Campus, London SE5 9PJ, United Kingdom; and 5 Department of Surgery, State University of New York at Stony Brook, Stony Brook, New York 11794 This study determined whether an acute alcohol dose could inhibit the refeeding response in starved muscle. Rats starved for 24 h were pretreated with alcohol or saline before refeeding by intragastric or intravenous infusion of enteral diet (ENT), total parenteral nutrition (TPN), or saline. Refeeding by TPN or ENT stimulated increases in the fractional rate of protein synthesis ( k s ) in skeletal muscle. Alcohol prevented the increase in k s when refeeding occurred intragastrically (TPN or ENT) ( P