The rat’s pancreas morphology an experiment with chronic alcohol intoxication and type I diabetes mellitus

Chronic alcohol intoxication and type 1 diabetes mellitus are a growing health problem in the modern world, the relevance of their study both in the clinic and in the experiment remains to this day. The combined effect of these two diseases on the state of the exocrine and endocrine parts of the pancreas remains unexplored. The aim of this study is to assess the role of chronic alcohol intoxication in disorders of the structure and function of the pancreas of rats with experimental type 1 diabetes mellitus. Type 1 diabetes mellitus was modeled by a standard method using alloxan. Chronic alcohol intoxication was modeled by forced alcoholization of animals with a 15% ethanol solution for 30 days. Histological examination and morphometry were performed on total sections of the pancreas of rats from three groups: intact animals, animals with experimental type 1 diabetes mellitus, and animals with experimental type 1 diabetes mellitus complicated by chronic alcohol intoxication. The general structure of the pancreas was analyzed on preparations stained with hematoxylin and eosin, paraldehyde fuchsin, and toluidine blue, the areas of acini and pancreatic islets were measured, and the number of corresponding cells was counted. The study established that the degree of expression of pathomorphological changes in pancreatic tissues was significantly higher in rats with the combined effect of the pathologies under study, both in intact animals and in rats with alloxan-induced diabetes mellitus. These changes are primarily manifested in increased fibrosis of pancreatic tissue, destructive changes in acinis, changes in the vascular bed and inhibition of the development of compensatory mechanisms aimed at restoring the endocrine apparatus of the organ. It follows that chronic alcohol intoxication significantly affects the condition of both the exocrine and endocrine parts of the pancreas in rats with experimentally induced type 1 diabetes mellitus.