A SWEET tooth combined with certain personality traits is a strong marker for
alcoholism, say scientists in North Carolina who have devised a simple test they
claim can identify 85 per cent of alcoholics.
Alexei Kampov-Polevoy of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill had
noticed that recovering alcoholics often consume huge amounts of sweets. 鈥淚t鈥檚
common knowledge,鈥� he says. 鈥淏ut there is no mention of it in textbooks.鈥� Many
alcoholics also drink large quantities of sweet drinks.
But not everyone with a sweet tooth goes on to abuse alcohol. So
Kampov-Polevoy and his colleagues devised a test that combines a sweet-loving
measure with an established personality test, looking at three types of
behaviour: novelty seeking, harm avoidance and dependence on rewards.
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The sweet-preference test involves giving five sucrose solutions in random
order, with concentrations ranging from 0.05 to 0.83 molar. The latter is about
two-and-a-half times as sweet as a typical carbonated soft drink.
In tests, 62 per cent of alcoholics preferred the highest sucrose
concentration鈥攖hree times the proportion in people with no drink problem.
These sweet-loving alcoholics also scored high on novelty seeking and harm
avoidance. This is the kind of person who 鈥渨ants to skydive but is afraid of the
plane鈥�, says Kampov-Polevoy. Sweet-lovers who were not alcoholics scored lower
than normal on both these measures.
In the latest issue of Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental
Research (vol 22, p 610), the researchers describe an experiment where they
evaluated the test on 78 volunteers, one-third of whom were alcoholics. It
classified 66 of them correctly.
The researchers suspect it may be possible to identify potential sweet-loving
alcoholics at an early age, and caution them about alcohol abuse. 鈥淢aybe they
can learn moderation,鈥� says Kampov-Polevoy. He believes the test will also apply
to other forms of addiction.
