Alcoholism Genetics: Fact Or Fiction?
In the past years, there had been a heated debate within the scientific community regarding the relationship between genetics and alcoholism. A group of scientists have grown suspicious about why genetics had always been used to explain behavioral and emotional problems. Alcoholism genetics had also become one of the theories used to prove that alcoholism is a disease and not a social choice.
Dr. Brian Goodwin, a biologist, contended that there is not such thing as alcoholism genetics. He explained that the mutation or changes that may happen to a set of genes can not be used to explain complex actions. It was also further explained that a person does not become an alcoholic due to the chemical activities that are taking place inside his body. Also, it is the person himself who decides how much alcohol he or she will consume and not his or her body. Despite this assertion of Dr. Goodwin and other scientists who shared the same viewpoint, there are studies that apparently prove the existence of alcoholism genetics.
A scientific study conducted with twins and children of alcoholics as subjects are just one of the many studies which apparently prove that genetics is related to alcoholism. According to these, a person whose family has a history of alcoholism is 4 times more likely to have alcohol problems. The Family Alcoholism Study conducted by the University of California, in particular, revealed that approximately twenty to twenty-five percent of sons and brothers of alcoholics also develop alcohol dependency. Another study that validates alcoholism genetics is the Collaborative Study of the Genetics of Alcoholism (COGA). According to this study, specific chromosomes may dictate the predisposition of a person to alcoholism. Chromosomes 1 and 7 are said to be very vulnerable to alcohol addiction while the opposite is true for chromosome 2. Other studies also looked for other genetic markers that may establish alcoholism genetics. These markers may take the form of proteins, DNA units and the like. A study conducted in 1988 established that there is a link between a particular blood group system on chromosome 4 and dependence on alcohol.
The role of alcoholism genetics had become even more of a controversy due to the conflicting results of many studies on this subject. It had been acknowledged by almost all clinicians that genetics, the environment or a combination of both factors causes alcoholism. Many speculate that contribution of genetics can be pegged at fifty percent. However, other researchers pegged its contribution to as low as ten percent or as high as seventy percent. A study that used biological children of alcoholics as subjects showed that there is a genetic basis of alcoholism. In this study, the children of alcoholic parents were made to live with nonalcoholic adoptive parents. The results of the study revealed that there is a high possibility for the children of alcoholic parents to develop alcohol addiction. Another study that used twins as subjects also revealed the same result. In this study, it was shown that there is a great chance for the second twin to develop alcoholism if the first twin also had it.
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