The heritability of alcohol use disorders: a meta-analysis of twin and adoption studies
Year: 2014
Type: review
Study designs: Systematic Review, Meta-Analysis
Abstract: BACKGROUND: To clarify the role of genetic and environmental risk factors in alcohol use disorders (AUDs), we performed a meta-analysis of twin and adoption studies and explored the impact of sex, assessment method (interview v. hospital/population records), and study design (twin v. adoption study) on heritability estimates. METHOD: The literature was searched for all unique twin and adoption studies of AUD and identified 12 twin and five adoption studies. The data were then reconstructed and analyzed using ordinal data full information maximum likelihood in the OpenMx program. Heterogeneity was tested with likelihood ratio tests by equating the parameters across studies. RESULTS: There was no evidence for heterogeneity by study design, sex or assessment method. The best-fit estimate of the heritability of AUD was 0.49 [95% confidence interval (CI) 0.43-0.53], and the proportion of shared environmental variance was 0.10 (95% CI 0.03-0.16). Estimates of unique environmental proportions of variance differed significantly across studies. CONCLUSIONS: AUD is approximately 50% heritable. The multiple genetically informative studies of this syndrome have produced consistent results that support the validity of this heritability estimate, especially given the different potential methodological weaknesses of twin and adoption designs, and of assessments of AUD based on personal interviews v. official records. We also found evidence for modest shared environmental effects suggesting that environmental factors also contribute to the familial aggregation of AUDs.
Source: Psychological Medicine
Authors: B. Verhulst, M. C. Neale, K. S. Kendler
Language: English
Subfield: Epidemiology
Field: Medicine
Domain: Health Sciences
Open Access status: green
Awards: G1322650969, G1776673475, G2256025927, G226808430, G2544752434, G3059684269, A Longitudinal Study of Genes, Environment and Alcohol Misuse In College Students, G558352837, Research Education in Statistical Genetics of Substance Abuse, Cross Species Characterization of Gene Networks in Acute Responses to Ethanol, G672342999, Psychometric and Genetic Assessments of Substance Use, G8368541980
OpenAlex ID: W2166059093