Abstract
The familial occurrence of alcoholism has been known for many years. Many twin, adoption, and family studies now concur that this familial pattern is to a great extent conferred by genes transmitted to biological offspring (1,2). Approximately 50–60% of individual differences in risk for alcoholism is genetic, and this proportion is approximately equal in men and women (2). Thus, it is an easy task to predict that a close biological relative of an alcoholic is at higher risk for alcoholism. However, risk is not inherited alleles at specific risk-promoting or -protective genes are inherited. To date, there are only two specific genes known to confer substantial protection against alcoholism, variants at the ALDH2*2 and ADH2*2 metabolic enzymes. The variant alleles lead to the accumulation of alcohol’ s metabolite, acetaldehyde, when susceptible individuals drink alcohol. This toxic compound produces nausea, flushing, dizziness, and other unpleasant effects, and slow alcohol metabolizers avoid excessive drinking (3). Therefore, progress from assigning risk statistically to ascertaining whether specific individuals possess risk-promoting or -protective alleles will require the identification of the specific genes underlying risk.
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Crabbe, J.C. (2003). Current Strategies for Identifying Genes for Alcohol Sensitivity. In: Maldonado, R. (eds) Molecular Biology of Drug Addiction. Humana Press, Totowa, NJ. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-59259-343-9_13
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