According to a recent report in the November issue of Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research, a candy bar today could mean alcohol abuse tomorrow. Researchers at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York found that having a sweet tooth precedes alcoholism and may serve as a marker for the genetic risk for developing the disease.

In a prepared statement to the press, study author Alexei B. Kampov-Polevoy said, “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.”

Kampov-Polevoy is an assistant professor of psychiatry at Mount Sinai and decided to create the study upon reviewing his previous research.

In looking over his notes on past studies, Kampov-Polevoy noticed that people who are alcoholics generally preferred sweeter fluids than their non-alcoholic peers. 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, so he decided to set up a study to find out.

In the study, Kampov-Polevoy studied 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 were then asked to rate a series of sucrose solutions for intensity of sweetness and palatability.

The researchers found that 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, demonstrating a link between sweet consumption and alcoholism.

“Craving alcohol is a complex psychological phenomenon, but is based on biology within the reward pathway in the central nervous system,” said Dr. Mark Peterson, medical director of a private clinic in Georgia and consultant for AlcoholMD.com. According to Peterson, the correlation between sweets and alcohol is a result of similar biological reactions to both substances. Since both sweets and alcohol increase seratonin production in the brain, thereby stimulating pleasure, it is only natural that people with a sweet tooth are more likely to become alcoholics.

A May 2002 study at Harvard Medical School titled “Alcohol Abuse and Dependence among U.S. College Students” found that 6 percent of college students met the criteria for a diagnosis of alcohol dependence (also referred to as alcoholism), and 31 percent met the clinical criteria for alcohol abuse.

“Heavy drinking is most often regarded as a behavior problem only,” said John R. Knight, principal investigator of the study and an assistant professor of pediatrics at the Harvard Medical School. “Many students who drink heavily are at high risk of true mental disorders such as alcohol abuse and dependence. Alcohol dependence especially may become a lifelong illness, and more should be done to recognize and help students at risk.”