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From EurekAlert! - Breaking News:
The influence of genetics increases as young women transition from taking their first drink to becoming alcoholics.
A team of researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis found that although environment is most influential in determining when girls begin to drink, genes play a larger role if they advance to problem drinking and alcohol dependence.
The researchers studied 3,546 female twins ages 18 to 29 to ferret out the influences of genes and environment in the development of alcohol dependence.
The road to alcohol dependence involves transitions through many stages of drinking behaviors: from the first drink to the first alcohol-related problems (such as drinking and driving, difficulty at school or work related to alcohol use) to alcohol dependence.
Environmental factors the twins shared, such as exposure to conflict between parents or alcohol use among peers in school, exerted the largest influence on initiation of alcohol use.
"Alcohol dependence is a psychiatric disorder, but drinking alcohol in moderation is normative and is a part of many cultural traditions," Sartor explains.
"For example, 85 percent of women in our study reported having at least one drink in their lifetimes whereas only about 7 percent became alcohol dependent."
Past studies have focused more on men than women, but Sartor says it is important to study both sexes because risk factors that contribute to alcohol problems differ somewhat between males and females.
This study was supported by the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.
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Posted on April 24, 2008 1:11 PM
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