From the sensory domain, sweet liking (i.e., preference for sweet tasting foods) is also a strong yet understudied candidate endophenotype. Perceived pleasantness of sweet foods, the frequency of sweet food consumption, and sweet food cravings are moderately heritable (31–50%) [80]. In a taste preference test, alcoholic men preferred higher concentration sucrose solutions compared to non-alcoholic men [81], and paternal history of alcoholism (an indicator of genetic risk) in an inpatient psychiatric sample predicted sweet liking above and beyond subjects’ own alcohol dependence status [82]. Children with a family history of alcoholism also prefer a higher sucrose concentration compared to children without a family history of alcoholism; however, this was only the case for children who were also experiencing depressive symptomatology [83]. Variation in the taste receptor type one family of genes (TAS1R1, TAS1R2, and TAS1R3) influences sweet liking [84] and there is a linkage peak (LOD = 3.5) on chromosome 16 at 16p11.2 (marker D16S753) for frequency of sweet food consumption [80]. However, whether variation in the TAS1 genes and other sweet-liking genomic regions are associated with AUD has not been systematically examined, representing an important direction for future research.
