Our findings suggest that a link between familial-alcoholism and obesity has emerged in recent years, particularly among women. In other words, the interaction between factors related to familial-alcoholism and the increasing obesigenicity of the environment may have resulted in a differential increase in the prevalence of obesity among individuals vulnerable to addiction. This may be specifically a result of a changing food-environment and the increased availability of highly palatable foods.18, 32–34 Hence, the present finding is consistent with a body of psychological and neurobiological literature describing over-eating as an addictive behavior.12, 14, 15, 17, 18, 35, 36 This point-of-view postulates that neurocircuitry activated by drugs of abuse overlaps regions involved in food-related rewards. There is also support for this idea from behavioral studies. For example, some studies have suggested an association between family history of alcoholism and a preference for sweet foods. 37, 38 However, to our knowledge, this is the first documentation of a link between alcoholism and obesity using epidemiological data, and more importantly, the first study to suggest that the epidemiological association between alcoholism-risk and obesity has grown over time, and perhaps emerged fairly recently.
