Alcoholism researchers have been looking long and hard for genes associated with the disease, and so far they've had little to show for it. But they can toast a new study of America's prime breeding grounds for alcoholism--college campuses. It indicates that youthful binge drinkers are significantly more likely than moderate drinkers to have a particular version of a gene involved in transmission of serotonin, a key brain chemical.
The gene in question comes in two versions, or alleles: long and short. People inherit one copy from each parent. Previous research found that people with two short alleles are more prone to anxiety and are more susceptible to depression triggered by adverse experiences (Science, 18 July, p. 291). Now it appears they're also more likely to get drunk.
The researchers, from George Washington University in Washington, D.C., and the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA), took DNA samples from and gave questionnaires to 204 Caucasian college students, asking them how often they drink, how much they drink, and whether they drink to get drunk. A binge was defined as at least four drinks (for women) or five (for men) in a sitting. It turned out that although people with various combinations of alleles drank with about the same frequency, those with two short alleles were more likely to binge and to set out to get drunk. And they were twice as likely as the others to have had at least 10 heavy drinking sessions in the prior 2 weeks, the team reports in the September issue of Alcohol and Alcoholism.
The authors speculate that students with two short alleles may drink more to counter higher levels of anxiety. Co-author Pedro DePetrillo, an NIAAA pharmacologist, says there is also evidence that they have higher ethanol tolerance, which means they would have to drink more to feel the effects.
The findings don't necessarily link the gene to alcoholism, says Jeffrey Long, a population geneticist at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. Rather he says, the gene may be a marker of traits such as novelty-seeking that could influence drinking patterns.
Related site
NIAAA report on college drinking
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