Interesting article. It shows that different groups of people ill react
differently to various foods and substances.


http://www.healthscout.com/template.asp?page=newsdetail&ap=419&id=509111

Gene Helps Jews Keep Drinking in Check


By Nancy Deutsch
HealthScoutNews Reporter


TUESDAY, Sept. 17 (HealthScoutNews) -- If you've ever envied some of your
friends who seem to inherently know when to stop drinking, blame the gene
pool. New York researchers confirm that a high percentage of Jews carry a
gene that seems to prevent alcoholism.

About 44 percent of the 68 Jewish participants the scientists tested were
found to carry a variant of a gene that produces a more active form of
alcohol dehydrogenase, the enzyme that catalyzes the first step in the
metabolism of alcohol.

Previous research has shown this gene exists among both Asian and Jewish
populations, although it is relatively uncommon among Caucasians; estimates
are that only 2 percent to 5 percent of Caucasians carry it.

The ADH2*2 variant of the gene ADH2 has been shown to prevent heavy drinking,
but this is the first study to show it also exerts an effect on alcohol
dependence in Jewish groups, says Deborah Hasin, a professor of clinical
public health at Columbia University. Hasin is the lead author of the new
study, which appears in the September issue of Alcoholism: Clinical and
Experimental Research.

How it exerts this effect is unknown, she admits: "Some effect of the gene
prevents them from drinking more, but we don't know how." It may be that
people with this gene become inebriated with a smaller amount of alcohol, or
that they feel some type of discomfort after consuming a certain amount, she
says.

Hasin and her colleagues used a well-validated questionnaire to assess the
Israeli Jews' current, past and lifetime level of alcohol dependence. The
participants then provided genetic material to be tested for the presence of
ADH2*2.

Results suggest the protective effect is stronger among the two more
established groups of Israeli Jews, the Ashkenazis (those of European descent
and Russian background who arrived before 1989) and Sephardics (those of
Middle Eastern and North African backgrounds). Less protected were recent
immigrants from the former Soviet Union.

The study findings are consistent with the ideology that genes are not solely
responsible for how much a person drinks. Environmental factors also play a
role, Hasin says. "I had thought from the beginning that environmental
effects might modify biological response," and the findings seem to confirm
this, she says. However, this aspect of the study needs to be confirmed in a
larger sample.

The majority of those interviewed were male, but women tend to drink less
than men and finding a large enough sample of women who drink heavily to
provide statistically significant results was outside the scope of the study,
Hasin says.

She acknowledges their sample was small, but says the results were
statistically significant.

Margit Burmeister, an associate professor of psychiatry and human genetics at
the University of Michigan, was not surprised by the study findings. Other
research by the same authors has shown similar results, albeit finding that
the ADH2*2 allele protects against heavy drinking as opposed to alcohol
dependence, she says.

Still, "it's a confirmation of something emerging as a picture," Burmeister
says. It's interesting to note that the recent immigrants drank more, she
adds.

"If you grow up in a heavy drinking population, it [ADH2*2] doesn't protect
you," she says. "There is a lot of environmental influence, no matter what."

Hasin says she and her colleagues next hope to conduct a larger study to
confirm the environmental modification of the genetic effect found in this
study. They also hope to determine whether ADH2*2 may have any impact on how
much a person smokes.