Alcoholism is now a very important health problem. In psychiatry, it is also studied and analyzed as a common topic. Therefore, it is of great significance to determine the relevant factors that affect people's drinking quantity, drinking frequency and quality drinks, and to formulate and improve intervention and treatment strategies.
Data of 780,000 people, 53 gene variants.
A new study by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) found that higher education-that is, longer education-may affect a person's drinking behavior and reduce the risk of alcohol dependence.
Previous studies have shown that education may affect drinking behavior, but there are conflicts between different research results. In order to evaluate the possible influence of education on drinking behavior and alcohol dependence, a research team of NIH used a two-sample Mendel random statistical method.
Using the gene data of the International Genomics Association, they studied a group of 53 gene variants related to educational differences and their relationship with some drinking behaviors. In another study, they tested which of 53 education-related mutations also existed in the DNA of people with different drinking behaviors.
Co-author Rodhoff published the study in the journal Molecular Psychiatry. He said: "Using the data of about 780,000 participants, we found that genetic mutations related to more than 36,654,38+0 years of education are also related to a 50% reduction in the risk of alcohol dependence."
In other words, genetic variation related to education will also affect the way and type of drinking.
The Influence of Education on Alcohol Dependence
In this study, we found that although the genetic variation related to education level has nothing to do with people's total weekly drinking, people with these genetic variations drink too much less frequently (each round contains 6 or more units of alcohol), and the lower the frequency of memory loss due to drinking, the lower the total daily drinking and the amount of distilled liquor, beer and cider they drink every week. The relationship between this genetic variation and drinking less is more obvious in women than in men, but it is related to drinking less.
"It is important to understand that although these changes enable us to study the possible impact of education on alcohol consumption and dependence, it does not mean that education cannot be changed," Rodhoff said. . In this study, we show the possible influence of education on alcohol consumption, indicating that improving education may be an effective way to prevent problem drinking, alcohol dependence and their consequences. "
However, the researchers warned that because the genetic data in the study came from people in English-speaking countries, the applicability of this discovery to other countries may be limited. It is necessary to repeat this study with data from different countries and races. In addition, the education level in this study only measures the years of education, so it is impossible to measure the influence of education on drinking more carefully from different aspects of education, but it should be investigated in future studies.
Drinking behavior reflects lifestyle.
Interestingly, this study also shows that the frequency of drinking is not low for both men and women, and the genetic variation is related to the education level. Men prefer to drink red wine while eating.
It is worth noting that an earlier study suggested that we should be alert to "long-term irregular" drinking behavior. Because the risk of drinking is not limited to alcoholics-those who drink irregularly will increase the risk of cardiovascular disease, but drinking regularly and moderately according to the recommended amount of health guidelines may have a protective effect on cardiovascular disease.
Dalla O'Neill, a researcher at UniversityCollegeLondon, said that scientists use long-term follow-up data to distinguish between people who never drink and those who quit drinking-according to a widely accepted theory, the latter should have a higher risk of coronary heart disease than the former, and data tests have confirmed this. At the same time, there are gender differences in this theory-women who never drink alcohol have a higher risk of coronary heart disease than men who often drink moderately, while men who never drink alcohol do not.
Generally speaking, the sample size of heavy drinkers is often insufficient in population-level research. From this experimental group, the number of female heavy drinkers participating in the statistics is small, so there is great doubt about the incidence of coronary heart disease among heavy drinkers at present.
Dr. O 'Neill said that one must be very careful in explaining the effects of drinking behavior. After all, as we all know, heavy drinking can lead to many health problems. Long-term unstable drinking behavior may bring more serious risks, which may be because unstable drinking behavior often reflects more aspects of people's unstable lifestyle, including poor health or high life pressure.