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Alcohol and Alcoholism Advance Access published online on November 3, 2005
Alcohol and Alcoholism, doi:10.1093/alcalc/agh235
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© The Author 2005. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Medical Council on Alcohol. All rights reserved
Received June 21, 2005
Revised October 2, 2005
Accepted October 13, 2005

Article

VOLUME INTAKE AND CRAVING IN ALCOHOL WITHDRAWAL

THOMAS HILLEMACHER 1*, KRISTINA BAYERLEIN 1, JULIA WILHELM 1, DANIELA POLEO 1, HELGE FRIELING 1, MARC ZIEGENBEIN 2, WOLFGANG SPERLING 1, JOHANNES KORNHUBER 1, and STEFAN BLEICH 1

1 Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, University of Erlangen-Nuremberg, Germany
2 Department of Social-Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, Medical School Hanover, Germany

* To whom correspondence should be addressed.
THOMAS HILLEMACHER, E-mail: thomas.hillemacher{at}psych.imed.uni-erlangen.de


  Abstract

Aims: It has been shown that beer consumption is associated with alcohol craving, in contrast to wine or spirits consumption. The present study was undertaken to evaluate whether the daily volume intake of alcoholic beverages is associated with craving in patients undergoing alcohol withdrawal. Methods: A total of 158 male patients were assessed using the obsessive compulsive drinking scale (OCDS) at admission. The daily volume intake of alcoholic beverages was calculated by adding the volume of all regularly consumed alcoholic beverages, disregarding their alcohol percentage. Lesch's typology was used to classify patients for subgroup analysis. Results: The daily volume intake of alcoholic beverages correlated significantly with the extent of the OCDS (r = 0.33; P < 0.001). With general linear models, we found a significant association of the calculated daily volume intake of all alcoholic beverages with craving (F = 6.426; P = 0.012), but not for the daily ethanol intake. Differentiating the patients according to Lesch's typology a significant association was particularly found in Lesch Type 2 (model of anxiety) patients (F = 11.31; P = 0.001). Conclusion: Our results support the hypothesis that volume intake is associated with craving and suggest a role of pathophysiological changes in volume regulating mechanisms (such as vasopressin or ANP) in the neurobiology of alcohol craving, particularly in male patients of Lesch's Type 2 undergoing alcohol withdrawal.


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