September 10, 2004
Can Vitamins Prevent Alcoholism?
Robert Filice, M.D.
You wouldn’t think so would you? How would you even go about studying such a
thing? Most of us know that abuse of alcohol will produce deficiencies of
B
complex vitamins, especially B1 or thiamine, sometimes so severe that brain
damage can result. It is much less well known that being deficient in B vitamins
may increase the craving for alcohol. Animal studies in the 1950’s showed that
healthy animals will always chose water over a water/alcohol combination. Yet
nutritionally deficient animals would often choose the alcohol. A more recent
study in 1996 looked at thiamine status. Induced thiamine deficiency in rats
made them prefer the alcohol solution over pure water, and a strain of mice that
were genetically bred to prefer alcohol were found to have lower thiamine
levels! So thiamine can be both a consequence and a cause of increased alcohol
consumption. The moral in this story is a good multivitamin is probably a great
idea for everyone, but if you have a family or personal history of alcoholism or
alcohol abuse, then it is doubly important that you avoid B vitamin depletion.
In this calorie rich, nutrient poor, refined and vitamin depleted stressful
world we live in, it is fairly easy to end up with a B vitamin deficiency which
these studies suggest may just predispose you to unhealthy alcohol use. Also it
is possible that heredity doesn’t inevitably cause multigenerational alcoholism,
but rather gives some people a higher than average requirement of certain
nutrients, including the
B complex vitamins, and therefore a greater vulnerability
to the disorder. A one pill per day multivitamin from the super
market or department store isn’t good enough. Nutritional and dietary therapy should play a major part in the
management of alcoholism so it is important that patients suffering from alcohol
related problems seek the services of an experienced nutritionally oriented
physician. |
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