Does Chromium Reduce Craving for Alcohol?

blog in December of 2005 on this topic. George, the first patient I described in Lifting Your Depression, reported that chromium definitely changed the way his body responded to alcohol.

Does Chromium Reduce Craving for Alcohol?

Dear Dr. McLeod,

I take chromium for 2 weeks as part of my diet to avoid crave for sugar.
Everything works fine but yesterday when I went for a party and had 5 pear ciders I started be aggressive like never before.
I do not understand the symptoms and my friends are not very happy about that what happened.
Could it be because any alcohol connection with chromium?
Could it be a sugar-chromium side effect?
Pear cider has got 210 kcal.

Regards
M.J.

Dear M.J.,

My knowledge of chromium’s effects on metabolism of alcohol by the human body is very limited, but I can tell you this. I posted a

To briefly summarize George’s response, in his own words, to alcohol after he started taking chromium:
“Both my parents were alcoholics. I saw the harm alcohol did to them and to our family, so I have always been very careful to limit my consumption of alcohol. In the past – on those rare occasions when I drink – I gulp alcohol, get drunk very fast, and have a terrible hangover the next day. As you know I started taking chromium picolinate about a month ago. This past weekend my reaction to alcohol was very different. I drank two beers, slowly, and got pleasantly tipsy. I didn’t feel a need to gulp alcohol as I have in the past, and I didn’t drink too much. When I woke the next morning, I did not have any trace of a hangover. Chromium has definitely changed the way my body reacts to alcohol.”

Thank you for contacting me, M.J. I wish I could offer more case histories, but my experience with alcohol and chromium is limited. Please let me know if you have any further observations and thoughts.

By the way, do you think pear cider might contain any toxins that contributed to the change in your behavior? Or might pear cider contain too much sugar?

Malcolm N. McLeod, MD

Does chromium reduce craving for alcohol?

Does chromium reduce craving for alcohol?

Q: You’ve written that chromium reduces cravings for carbs. Does it also decrease the craving for alcohol?

A: What an interesting and important question!

George, the first person I describe in Lifting Depression: The Chromium Connection, reported that chromium – in addition to lifing his mood and reducing his appetite – definitely decreased his craving for alcohol. Before taking chromium, on those rare occasions when he drank, he would gulp alcohol, become rapidly intoxicated, drink too much, and feel awful the next day. After he started chromium, he felt less compelled to gulp alcohol, he drank slowly, he drank less, and he didn’t have a hangover the next day.

Common knowledge

First of all, it is common knowledge among clinicians (healthcare professionals who see patients) that craving for carbohydrates is common among alcohol-dependent people, especialy when they stop drinking alcohol.

Scientific study

Registered dietitian Mona Moorhouse, working at the Addiction Program at the Royal Ottawa Hospital, scientifically studied this clinical impression. She measured the effects of diet on alcohol craving, and mood. She and her colleagues documented that about 50 percent of alcoholics also crave carbohydrates, especially when sober. This suggests there is some underlying biochemical imbalance that both conditions have in common. Since chromium curbs cravings for carbs, it makes sense that it would also curb the craving for alcohol in some people.

Nutritional deficiency

I agree with Dr. Abram Hoffer that certainly people with an alcohol problem should supplement their diets with chromium, as well as with vitamin C, L-glutamine, lecithin, and a multi-vitamin. In Dr. Hoffer’s words, “Chromium greatly reduces carbohydrate mis-metabolism, and greatly helps control blood sugar levels.”

Don’t over simplify

If you have a problem with alcohol, chromium probably will help you. But don’t expect chromium to do the job alone. Expecting chromium alone to treat alcoholism is as farcical as expecting one person to play a symphony.

Alcoholism is a complicated disorder that requires multiple treatments, including spiritual/psychological counseling, attendance at Alcoholics Anonymous (AA), nutritional supplementation, and evaluation of underlying medical/psychiatric contributory conditions, and that doesn’t include all treatments. I would never want a person to ignore the complexity of alcoholism and its multiple treatments and say “Ah, ha. I can drink now if I take chromium.” Please don’t do that.

Original observation? Chromium deficiency impairs alcohol tolerance

Original observation? Chromium deficiency impairs alcohol tolerance

Q: You wrote in Lifting Depression: The Chromium Connection that chromium supplementation changed the way alcohol affected one of your patients. Are you the first person to make this discovery?

A: No.

In the 1990s, when I first observed that chromium supplementation decreases craving for alcohol and softens hangovers, I thought I had made an original observation. Moreover, I inferred that chromium deficiency impairs the body’s ability to metabolize alcohol. Recently, I learned that my observation was not original.

I was talking by phone with my friend-in-science, Patrick Holford, in England. He is Director of The Institute for Optimum Nutrition and author of a must-read book on nutrition.

During our talk, Patrick and I exchanged various ideas and facts relating to natural treatments of depression. He asked if I was familiar with a chapter on chromium in a book titled Mental and Elemental Nutrients: A Physician’s Guide to Nutrition and Health Care by Dr. Carl C. Pfeiffer, Ph.D., M.D. that was published in 1975. Although I had read thousands of articles about chromium, I had somehow missed this one. Patrick generously agreed to send it to me. In the chapter, Dr. Pfeiffer wrote that one of the earliest signs of chromium deficiency in pregnant women is “complete alcohol intolerance”(p.290).

So much for my original observation!

I would like to repeat here that chromium is not THE treatment for alcoholism. Alcoholism is a complex disorder that requires multiple treatments including but not limited to AA, medical treatment, and nutritional supplementation. You must not say to yourself, “Oh. Now all I have to do is take chromium and I can drink without a hangover.” Please don’t do that.