A recent article in Science Daily reported that researchers found women who crave sweets may be at higher risk for alcoholism. They examined two groups of women between 21 and 40 years of age:
- 27 current smokers (18 had a positive family history of alcoholism)
- 22 women who had never smoked in their lives (9 had a positive family history of alcoholism)
Cravings for specific foods and, for the smokers, cravings for cigarettes, were measured.
Cigarette smoking and having a family history of alcoholism had different effects on sweet-taste perception and food cravings,” said Julie A. Mennella, a senior researcher at Monell and coauthor of the study.
Women who smoked cigarettes were less sensitive to sweet taste than women who never smoked. We also found that the more years a woman has smoked cigarettes, the less sensitive she will be to sweet taste.
Whether the reduced sensitivity for sweet tastes helps smokers control their weight is an important question that needs further study, she added.
According to Alexei B. Kampov-Polevoy, research assistant professor of psychiatry at The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, the second finding — that women with a family history of alcoholism preferred higher levels of sweetness and craved sweet-tasting foods more often — is also noteworthy. He said it confirms earlier reports that a pleasurable response to sweet taste is associated with a genetic risk for alcoholism.
According to Kampov:
We may now use this knowledge to, one, identify individuals at high risk for alcoholism and two, study biological mechanisms involved in the development of alcohol-use disorders.
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