The effect of fat and carbohydrate content of the diet on voluntary ethanol intake in golden hamsters

Golden hamsters, which avidly consume ethanol solutions, had continuous access to food and water and to either 15% or 30% ethanol solution (v/v) over a period of weeks. Hamsters consumed approximately equal amounts of absolute ethanol when maintained on either a Purina Chow diet or a high-carbohydrate, low-fat diet (7.6 and 7.1 g/kg/day, respectively), but they consumed substantially less ethanol when maintained on a high-fat, low-carbohydrate diet (4.4 g/kg/day). However, the pattern of differences among groups of hamsters maintained on different diets was not the same at the two ethanol concentrations. Thus, at the 15% concentration, HC hamsters consumed more than twice as much ethanol as HF hamsters, but at the 30% concentration, the difference in ethanol consumption was greatly reduced and did not prove to be statistically significant. These results indicate that it is important to consider the concentration of the ethanol solution when studying the effects of dietary macronutrient content on ethanol consumption. (C) 1999 Elsevier Science Inc. All rights reserved.