Alcoholic Ketoacidosis

Key points

• Alcoholic ketoacidosis is a non-diabetic euglycaemic form of ketoacidosis. It occurs in people who regularly drink large amounts of alcohol. Often alcoholics will not eat regularly and may vomit food that they do eat,
• Metabolic acidosis
• Elevated anion gap
• Elevated serum ketone levels
• Normal or low glucose concentration The most appropriate treatment is an infusion of saline & thiamine. Thiamine is required to avoid Wernicke encephalopathy or Korsakoff psychosis.