5-Hydroxytryptophol (5HTOL), a New Sensitive Urinary Test of Recent Alcohol Consumption

The traditional method to assess whether a person has recently been drinking is by analysis of breath, blood or urine samples for the presence of alcohol (ethanol). However, the usefulness o f these assays is limited by the time course o f alcohol in the body. Because ethanol is rapidly metabolised and eliminated from the body, a method to confirm recent drinking even after ethanol has been cleared would have considerable importance. Assay of urinary 5-hydroxytryptophol (5HTOL), a metabolite of serotonin (5-hydroxytryptamine), has shown promise as a way to prolong the detection window of recent alcohol use by several hours compared to measuring ethanol in body fluids or breath (Helander et al,, 1994a). This new test has already proven useful, for example to m onitor abstinence in alcohol dependent subjects treated as outpatients (Voltaire Carlsson et al., 1993), and to distinguish ingested from microbially formed ethanol in forensic post-mortem specimens (Helander et al., 1992a, 1995b).