Effect of Different Alcoholic Beverages on Human Glioblastoma Cell Lines

Background: Anecdotal reports from neurosurgeons have suggested that glioblastoma patients that consumed moderate amounts of alcoholic beverages after glioblastoma surgery presented with improved vitality. Objective: This study aimed to investigate if any evidence for these anecdotal reports can be reproduced experimentally. Furthermore, we studied the effects of different alcoholic beverages on glioblastoma cells. Methods: GOS-3 glioblastoma cells and PC3 prostate carcinoma cells as control were incubated with beer, red wine, white wine, vodka, and whiskey at different concentrations. Membrane disruption by acute cytotoxicity and apoptosis induction was evaluated via Annexin-V-FITC flow cytometry and confocal laser scanning microscopy. Long-term effects on cell proliferation were studied by the XTT test. Results: There was no increased membrane disruption even at physiologically high alcohol concentrations of 1%. Cell proliferation was significantly inhibited by vodka and beer. Among the wines, the white wine caused slight proliferation inhibition in GOS-3 glioblastoma cells while inducing slightly enhanced proliferation in PC3 prostate cancer cells. After these first results, the study was expanded to more different brands of vodka and additional white and red wines from different grapes. While confirming the initial results, no additional differences between the different brands of vodka were observed. In the wine investigations, all the wines showed inhibition of cell proliferation during long-term incubation of three different glioblastoma cell lines. Consistently, the inhibition from red wines was lower than the inhibition from white and rosines. Conclusion: In conclusion, alcoholic beverages at concentrations used during the normal ingestion have both cytotoxic and antiproliferative effects on glioblastoma cells in vitro which could not be found in the controls with pure ethanol.