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Other causes of failed PEth test for alcohol abuse?
My daughter undergoes periodic peth testing for alchohol abuse. She fails regularly, although swears she drinks NOTHING. We have reason to believe she is telling the truth. Assuming she is indeed not drinking, is there a physical condition or ailment that might produce positive peth tests? She is 29, has enlarged lymph nodes, some kind of mysterious condition that gives her severe hives, etc. We are wondering if some type of autoinflammation or autoimmune condition might explain elevated levels. Our daughter is FINALLY discussing this with her regular doctor but if it is some unusual condition a specialist will be needed. The reason the peth test is required is due to a nasty custody dispute with lots of allegations of misconduct. I just want to know if there is ANYTHING other than alchohol consumption that can lead to positive test results. Any thoughts or knowledge of cases? Thanks for reading.
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Google PEth and “DNA Legal”....that should take you to a brochure containing the manufacturers’ guidelines for interpreting results. Guidelines unquestioningly followed by the third-party administrators and fourth-party interpreters.
I have MS. The enzyme that makes PEth (called PLD) is hyperactive as part of the MS disease process. Maybe your PLD enzyme is hyperactive too?
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1 Reaction@oledocfarmer My PEth test from request a test that used LabCorp was 227, not my EtG. I have passed every EtG and CDT test, but according to the PEth test, I must bing drink 4 times a day? Like I've previously stated.... I'm 5'6 and weigh 110 pounds. I don't think I could talk, much less function if these levels were acurate.
I will look into this... thank you!
Completely agree. You are a textbook case of the unreliability of this test. Its use and application without more extensive, INDEPENDENT testing is at best unethical.
My prayer is that some government agency somewhere somehow will address this issue.
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1 ReactionI will see if I can find the papers I read that talk about these numbers; at the lower levels they are very poor measures of quantities. It really all depends how much of the enzimes your body produces and how fast it breaks them down. Thus other than "maybe": are they are drinking a lot or a little- is the best they can get to quantify and even that is pretty skewed with no real published results to back that up from what I could find online after a huge amount of time looking.
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1 ReactionI doubt such information even exists. You’d need a large study (such as you would get in a standard FDA approval process) to work all those things out. The most PEth has a compelling biochemical theory/model....problem is there have been many, many compelling biochemical models in the past (e.g., lung cancer has been easily curable in rats for decades), but the models rarely work in reality the way they’re expected to work in theory. That’s why large, INDEPENDENT studies are necessary. The use of this test without such studies is unethical on its face.
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1 ReactionHey is Mayo sponsoring this thread because it’s considering getting involved in this train wreck? We sure could use some help!
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1 ReactionThe PETH numbers do not directly correlate to blood alcohol level in a truly quantitative way. It is just an enzyme that is produced in response to your body processing alcohol (and in my belief some other things that cause these false positives). This number can be higher or lower for different people. Also the enzyme is broken down by different people at different rates (some of the studies said for instance less than 100% functional liver could effect how fast this happens). The number is greatly effected by how well or poorly your body breaks the enzymes down and is highly coupled to time in that regard as well.
I think this is just an open forum for people to post and respond to health related questions they host... I would not read anything more into it than that. I honestly do not think anything will come of this without:
1) An independent researcher getting funding to do a lot of testing
2) A bunch of people that believe this test is flawed banding together with their existing questionable results and filing a lawsuit (Note: In my mind this is people that take the test same day and get different results from different places).