Skip to main content

Do Genes Trigger Alcohol ADDICTION ?

Image
By
Scientists are still grappling with the question why only some people develop undue fondness for alcohol and become addicts, while others are able to keep within healthy limits. While alcoholism is known to run in families, it is not clear whether it is the effect of the environmental exposure from childhood or our genetic make up that makes us so.The role of genes became suspect when studies on identical twins, separated early in life and brought up in different homes were found to have a much higher chance of showing a similar pattern when traced in adulthood. If one was an alcoholic, then the other had a very high chance of being one too, even if separarted over long distances!
The search for the addiction gene has however not been easy: it has become increasingly clear in recent years that there me be as many as 20 genes that determine addiction, just as there could be severasl reasons why people drink.

It is common knowledge that anxious people find relaxation in drinks, and often tend to drink more during stress. Researchers from University of Illinois, Chicago have shown that inborn levels of anxiety, governed by some genes, could play a role in alcohol addiction. Says researcher Subhas Pandey, “Some 30-70% of alcoholics suffer from anxiety or depression, and drinking is a way for these individuals to self medicate”.
Pandey’s research focusses on the CREB gene, so called because it produces the protein CREB, that regulates brain function during development and learning and is involved in the process of alcohol tolerance, dependence and withdrawal symptoms. When there is less CREB protein in the part of the brain called amygdala, one experiences increased anxiety-like behaviour and preference for alcohol. Further, his study showed that rats deficient in CREB protein drank about 50% more alcohol than normal rats, and showed higher prefernce to alcohol over water.
Another mechanism for alcohol dependence could be sheer pleasure rather than anxiety-reduction. A group of researchers led by Dr Wofgang Sadee have found how differences in one gene can make the brain more sensitive to alcohol, narcotics and nicotine. The gene studied codes for a brain protein called opioid receptor, which acts like a switch turning on pleasure and blocking pain when triggered by alcohol or certain drugs. The 2 variations of the mu-opioid receptor gene A118G and G118, determine our response to morphine like drugs or morphine like chemicals naturally produced in the body that determine our individual sensitivities to pain and pleasure, and could well explain why some people find so much pleasure in alcohol while others do not. The increased sensitivity to alcohol and opioids could make these individuals highly susceptibe to addiction to these agents, and make withdrawal extremely painful.
These recent scientific revellations help explain why the same beer or whisky evokes such wide variations in response among individuals consuming them. Time has still not come for scientists to predict who might become an addict if he starts drinking and who should stay away. However the question of addiction was irrelevant when alcohol was a social taboo, but with its growing presence in parties and clubs, the “mother’s fear” has reasons for its return.
As published in HT City ( Hindustan Times) dated 4 april , 2010.
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Teaching and Learning – is there a trick?

By
One of the big mistakes that we as parents and teachers often make, and that could stifle the mental development of our children, is to treat them as just small adults! In fact, it is this attitude of grown-ups that could be leading our next generation to become stereotyped conformists rather than original thinkers and innovators. And if we intend to drive home health messages and inculcate healthy habits we need to tailor our efforts to their cognitive potential. That children indeed think and discover the world differently was first noticed by a Swiss scientist Jean Piaget in the early 20th century. He studied his own three children grow and was intrigued by how they behaved, played games and learnt at different ages. With further observations and experiments, he propounded the theory of ‘cognitive development’, placed great importance on the education of children and is hailed even today, 30 years after his death, as a pioneer of the constructive theory of knowing.  He...
1 comment
Read more

The Doctor’s Dress

By
The familiar white coat worn by physicians as their distinctive dress for over 100 years, has started generating  murmurs  of controversy. It is not uncommon to find the blood pressure to be higher when measured by a white-coat-wearing-doctor in the hospital or clinic than the readings obtained at home by relatives.  This is due to the anxiety that the white coat and the hospital setting evokes in patients, and has been termed “White Coat Hypertension”. Mature clinicians often routinely subtract a few points from these measurements when entering records in case charts or calculating the dose of anti-hypertensive medications to be prescribed. The white coat scares children too.  Kids often express their dislike for this dress by crying and screaming and by denying access to their bellies or chest for examination by paediatricians in this attire. Many pediatricians across the world have folded up their white coats and taken to informal colourful dressing to...
2 comments
Read more

Questions from a Doctor’s Life

By
There is hardly any person in Uttar Pradesh who has not heard of Dr D K Chhabra, a senior neurosurgeon, who died recently. Over the decades his expertise, pragmatic advice and popularity had broken the shackles of his narrow surgical field coming to be known as a “brain-specialist”and a genuine adviser for all health problems. I got to know him in 1987 when I joined the upcoming Sanjay Gandhi PG Institute of Medical Sciences (SGPGI) in Lucknow as a young member of the faculty in Gastroenterology. He had moved from his alma mater the KG Medical College where he is still regarded as a legend. An omnipresent bachelor doctor living in the duty room readily available to help anybody anytime.He was tasked to heading and developing Neurosciences at SGPGI. He had an eye for detail and was tasked additionally by the director to set up not just his department, but the whole hospital, the building, equipment and the campus. DKC was a tall and handsome man who spoke little. But when he did inl...
1 comment
Read more