The Role of Nutritional Factors in the Cause, Prevention, and Cure of Alcoholism and Associated Infirmities

Abstract

Rats, when maintained on diets deficient in certain of the B vitamins, develop a markedly increased voluntary consumption of ethyl alcohol, apparently because of the body’s need for utilizable calories. When normal metabolic pathways are restored to the rat by supplying it with sufficient amounts of the missing vitamins, the animal tends to quickly lose its excessive appetite for alcohol. There is no evidence that a similar mechanism operates as a major, primary cause of alcohol addiction in man. Here, however, it must be emphasized that this possibility never has been satisfactorily investigated. Malnutrition does play an important role in the perpetuation of excessive drinking in many alcoholics who develop deficiency states as a result of their alcoholism. As with the rat, such persons may acquire metabolic blocks and develop a reliance upon alcohol as a utilizable source of essential energy. This probability requires investigation. More obvious is the causal relation of the painful, disabling, and embarrassing nutritional diseases in the alcoholic to the perpetuation of excessive drinking. The correction of such physical and mental ills is a prerequisite to the successful management of the alcoholism itself, and sometimes brings about a complete cure. While alcohol is toxic to man, its known effects are acute in nature. The major, chronic, organic disorders associated with alcoholism, and often considered stigmata of alcoholism, are manifestations of nutritional disturbances. They are not peculiar to alcoholism, but occur in total abstainers who for one reason or another develop the necessary nutrient deficiencies. They can be prevented by proper nutritional management.