The renin-angiotensin system: a multidimensional source of control over alcohol consumption

While the renin-angiotensin system has traditionally been considered part of a larger homeostatic process that regulates blood pressure and fluid/electrolyte balance, the data summarized in this review suggest a new and different kind of function- that of regulating the behavior of alcohol consumption. Using a wide variety of drug, genetic, dietary, surgical and neurosurgical manipulations all of which share the common property of altering activity in the renin-angiotensin system, the picture emerges of an inverse relationship between activity in the renin-angiotensin system and alcohol consumption. One possible mechanism of this effect may be a process of satiety where levels of the bioactive peptide angiotensin II exceeding a critical level, set behavioral processes into action that lead to a cessation in alcohol intake.