Dietary Deficiencies in Animals in Relation to Voluntary Alcohol and Sugar Consumption

Abstract

Experimental work is presented which demonstrates that sugar consumption (as well as alcohol consumption) in rats is increased by deficient diets. While there is by no means a perfect parallel between alcohol consumption in human beings and in experimental animals, it appears that a broad principle is involved in all cases: Adequate nutrition enhances the "wisdom of the body" with respect to food selection, and inadequate nutrition impairs, probably by affecting the hypothalamus, the food selection mechanisms. These mechanisms encompass the gustatory phenomena which are probably important both in animals and in man. While deficient rats will choose a sugar solution in preference to alcohol (which human alcoholics do not in a parallel fashion do), the differences between rats and humans in this regard may easily be due to the differences in the utilization of different pathways of carbohydrate metabolism. The present status of the genetotropic concept as applied to alcoholism is discussed in the light of clinical trials.