Sixty-five percent of the alcoholics preferred the most concentrated sugar solution, which is more than twice as sweet as a coke. The nonalcoholic men most often preferred a solution that was only half this sweet. Only 16 percent of them preferred the sweetest solution. These results are the first published to relate preference for sweet tastes to alcohol intake in humans. If alcoholism is partly caused by a malfunction in the brain's reward system, then it makes sense that alcoholics would like stronger sweet tastes, which are, in a sense, stronger doses of pleasure.
Sugar can mimic serotonin or activate the pleasure center of the brain.
And Kampov points out that the liking for sweet tastes is a basic instinct that can be detected in newborn humans and animals minutes after birth. Research shows that when a sweet solution is dotted onto a newborn's lips, he starts smiling. That's not to say that everyone with a weakness for dessert is an alcoholic. The sweetest sugar solution used in the study, the one most preferred by the alcoholics, tastes so sickeningly sweet, it makes your mouth pucker. The Carolina Sweet Test, as it's called, seems to be more useful in identifying predisposition to alcoholism when used in combination with a personality measure.