Decomposition of Concentration-Time Profiles after Oral Administration of Different Ethanol Doses in Humans

A new physiologically-motivated structural model capable of evaluating ethanol behavior within the whole-body blood metabolism was developed. This model was estimated on the basis of a reanalysis of the mean blood ethanol concentration-time profile data after the oral administration of 11.2, 22.4, 33.6 and 45 g ethanol doses to eight fasting adult male volunteers published in the study of Wilkinson et al. from 1977. From the system theory point of view, our structural model is a linear flow well-stirred model characterized by parameters: time delay, time constant, clearance and blood flow considered for construction of the gastrointestinal and circulatory system. This model explains the linear increasing of mean residence time and gain of the system, and nonlinear increasing of area under curve and blood flow through the cardiopulmonary subsystem depending on the administered ethanol dose. The number of absorbed ethanol fractions dependent on the dose was within 3 to 5.