Are Addiction Risks Greater for Children of Alcoholics?
(HealthDay News) It’s generally accepted that alcoholism is a disease, triggered by a terrible, compulsive addiction for a person to drink, often until he or she passes out. Alcoholism has been classified as a disease by a number of national medical and psychological organizations. But is that addictive behavior genetic? Will children of alcoholics also have a greater risk to be plagued by the addiction of their parent(s)? One study disputes that conventional wisdom. The research, which zeroes in on a series of tests that were designed to determine alcoholic risk factors, suggests that performance on psychological tests in early adulthood does not predict alcoholism later in life. The finding debunks a prevailing theory that neuropsychological performance can foretell the future alcoholic tendencies of children. University of Kansas researchers used data collected in a large retrospective Danish study during the 1960s to examine potential markers for future alcoholics. The Danish study
