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Sweet
Tooth May
Forecast Drinking Problem
Having a sweet tooth precedes alcoholism
and may serve as a marker for the genetic risk for developing
the disease.
That's the sobering conclusion
of a study in the November issue of Alcoholism: Clinical and
Experimental Research.
"Previous research has established
that in mammals such as mice, rats and monkeys, the preference
for and consumption of sweet fluids are strongly correlated with
voluntary alcohol intake," study author Alexei B. Kampov-Polevoy,
an assistant professor of psychiatry at Mount Sinai School of
Medicine, says in a prepared statement.
Prior research by Kampov-Polevoy
also showed people who are alcoholics prefer sweeter fluids than
non-alcoholics. But it wasn't clear whether the preference for
sweet fluids was a result of a long history of drinking or whether
this sweet tooth preceded alcoholism.
This new study sought to answer
that question. It included 163 social drinkers who were divided
into two groups. The 81 people in the first group had a paternal
history of alcoholism, while the 82 people in the second group
did not.
All the study participants rated
a series of sucrose solutions for intensity of sweetness and palatability.
People with a paternal history of alcoholism were 2.5 times more
likely to enjoy the sweet solution than the people in the second
group.
"This finding indicates that sweet
liking precedes alcoholism and suggests that the association previously
reported is unlikely to be due to differential histories of alcohol
exposure," David Overstreet, an associate professor of psychiatry
at the Bowles Center for Alcohol Studies at the University of
North Carolina at Chapel Hill, says in a prepared statement.
"This finding adds further weight
to the hypothesis for the association between the liking for sweets
and the genetic risk for alcoholism. However, it does not provide
definitive proof," Overstreet says.
More information
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Reference
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