We have plenty of evidence that humans are ‘hard-wired’ by evolution to crave salt, sugar and fat. But now it appears we may also be predisposed, through the same mechanisms, to crave alcohol. If that’s true, it could explain a few things…
This contented Chimpanze is eating fruit that may contain up to 2 percent alcohol…
A new study by researchers at UC-Berkeley suggests that humans are hard-wired to crave alcohol. That might mean that alcohol addiction is more like OREO (sugar) addiction than to drug addiction. It’s my understanding that people try drugs by choice, often leading to addiction, but they crave certain foods at a fundamental level.
The UCB team set out to study the validity of the so-called ‘Drunken Monkey’ theory.
What they did
The research involved was about as fundamental as you can get: Dr. Christina Campbell and her graduate student Victoria Weaver collected fruit leftovers discarded by free-ranging Black-Handed Spider Monkeys (Ateles geoffroyi) in Panama. They also collected urine from those monkeys.
The fruit and urine were both chemically analysed producing results that led to an interesting conclusion.
What they found
The fruit was found to contain 1 – 2 percent alcohol – call it ‘hyper-ripe’ fruit. And the monkeys habitually sought it out in preference to less-ripe fruit.
The urine samples contained alcohol metabolites, indicating that the monkeys not only ate the fruit because it was sweet but to get the alcohol – which their bodies absorbed and processed in the same way the human system does.
The takeaway
“For the first time, we have been able to show, without a shadow of a doubt, that wild primates, with no human interference, consume fruit containing ethanol,” says Campbell. “This is just one study, and more need to be done, but it looks like there may be some truth to that ‘drunken monkey’ hypothesis – that the proclivity of humans to consume alcohol stems from a deep-rooted affinity of frugivorous (fruit-eating) primates for naturally-occurring ethanol within ripe fruit.”
My take
It just makes sense. Researchers behind the OREO study concluded: “Our research supports the theory that high-fat/high-sugar foods stimulate the brain in the same way that drugs do. It may explain why some people can’t resist these foods despite the fact that they know they are bad for them.”
And the researchers found that the high-fat/sugar cookies cause even stronger neural responses than cocaine or morphine – two of the most addictive substances known to medical science.
Seems to me that alcohol belongs in the OREO category, rather than the hard drug camp. But that doesn’t make a lot of difference in how alcohol addiction can or should be treated. One you’re hooked, it’s all the same mechanism. The key seems to be not to give in to the allure of alcohol in the first place – as compelling as it may be.
~ Maggie J.