IS THERE AN INHERITED SUSCEPTIBILITY TO ALCOHOL-RELATED PROBLEMS?
Alcoholism and alcohol-related disorders have a pronounced familial tendency. There has been considerable debate over many years as to whether this represents transmission of genetic traits or the influence of family environment on drinking behaviour. Studies of adopted children and of monozygotic compared with dizygotic twins show a modest but definite genetic influence on drinking habits and, at least in men, on the occurrence of psychosocial problems related to alcohol abuse. There is evidence for two types of alcoholism, one that is highly heritable and another that shows a lesser degree of inheritance and requires environmental stressors for it to be manifest. The mechanisms by which such genetic influences are expressed are unknown although the metabolism of alcohol and many of its physiological effects are partly genetically determined. No biological markers have been associated convincingly with a predisposition to alcoholism but absence of an isoenzyme of aldehyde dehydrogenas
