Genetics and Health

Genetic Susceptibility to Alcoholism

by Hsien Hsien Lei, PhD on August 11th, 2005

Among my friends, there seems to be two types of alcohol drinkers: ones that can have fun drinking an entire bottle of wine and ones that can’t even handle half a glass of beer. I used to belong to the former group but haven’t been able to drink much anymore (my party days are long over) without feeling overheated and uncomfortable. A gene dubbed the “hangover” gene in fruit flies may explain why some people tolerate the effects of alcohol better than others. (news@nature.com, August 10, 2005)

In what must have been a funny experiment, researchers exposed fruit flies to ethanol vapour then waited to see how long it would take them to lose their balance and hit the bottom of a column containing several platforms. Flies that lacked a functional hangover gene seemed to have less tolerance to ethanol and fell to the bottom much sooner than normal flies.

Researchers don’t know how the hangover gene works but hypothesize that it could affect the ability to cope with stressors. Another gene related to alcohol tolerance called octopamine seems to work in the brain coding for a neurotransmitter involved in storing memories of rewarding experiences. If either the hangover or octopamine genes is missing, flies are less able to resist the effects of alcohol.

Ulrike Heberlein at the University of California in San Francisco says that genes may help to understand why some people become alcoholics.

The ultimate goal, Heberlein says, is to identify potential drug targets to treat alcoholism. “Once you understand how tolerance works,” she says, “you can potentially interfere with it pharmacologically.”

As I’ve mentioned before, there’s a fine line between an enophile and an alcoholic. If genetic testing becomes routine, I’d worry that someone like me who can tolerate alcohol well might be labelled a potential alcoholic. I don’t disagree that it would be helpful to have drugs which work more effectively than Antabuse, but other interventions should be offered before people are dosed with pharmaceuticals.

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POSTED IN: Genetics of Disease