Correlations among First-Degree Relatives for Responses on the Self-Rating of the Effects of Alcohol Questionnaire in Teenagers
Journal article by Marc A. Schuckit, Tom L. Smith, George Danko, Samuel Kuperman, Laura J. Bierut, Victor Hesselbrock; Journal of Studies on Alcohol, Vol. 66, 2005
Journal Article Excerpt
Correlations among First-Degree Relatives for Responses on the Self-Rating of the Effects of Alcohol Questionnaire in Teenagers *. by Marc A. Schuckit , Tom L. Smith , George Danko , Samuel Kuperman , Laura J. Bierut , Victor Hesselbrock A LOW LEVEL of response (LR) to alcohol is one of several independent, genetically influenced characteristics or phenotypes that have an impact on the risk for alcohol abuse and dependence (Heath et al., 1999; Schuckit, 2002; Zucker et al., 2000). A lower LR to alcohol has been reported for several groups at higher risk for alcohol use disorders (AUDs), including children of alcoholics, Native Americans and Koreans, and results from four prospective studies indicate that a lower LR earlier in life is associated with a higher risk for later alcohol problems (Ehlers et al., 1999; Heath et al., 1999; Rodriguez et al., 1993; Schuckit, 2002; Schuckit and Smith, 2000; Volavka et al., 1996; Wall et al., 1999). The heritability of LR has been established in animals and, through alcohol challenges, is estimated to be at least 0.4 in humans (Barr et al., 2003; Bell et al., 2001; Heath et al., 1999; Kurtz et al., 1996; Martin et al., 1985). Although some investigators discussed the importance of controlling for recent drinking histories in establishing LR through alcohol challenges (Heath and Martin, 1991), more recent evaluations support the conclusion that, even after additional factors are controlled, the heritability estimates remain above 0.4 for both alcohol-induced changes in body sway and subjective feelings of intoxication. These results do not appear to relate to either alcohol dehydrogenase forms or additional psychiatric diagnoses such as conduct disorder (Heath et al., 1999; Schuckit et al., 2000a).Alcohol challenges as measures of LR have several drawbacks. First, alcohol cannot be administered to some subjects, including children below age 18 (the age for giving informed consent), and, thus, LR is usually established after several years of drinking. The relationship of LR to AUD risk factors such as family history and later alcoholic outcome appears robust even after controlling for recent drinking (Heath et al., 1999; Schuckit and Smith, 2000); there are, however, obvious benefits for measuring LR at an earlier age. Second, alcohol challenges require several costly day-long sessions, which preclude gathering data from large numbers of subjects. This limitation poses a problem for either genetic linkage studies or multivariate evaluations of models of risk.An alternative LR measure is the Self-Rating of the Effects of Alcohol (SRE) questionnaire, which asks subjects to report the number of standard (12 g of ethanol) drinks required for each of four effects (beginning to feel intoxication, slurring speech, an unsteady gait, or falling asleep when they did not want to) at different points in their lives (Schuckit et al., 1997a,b, 2000b, 2001b). SRE values have 1-year retest reliabilities as high as 0.8 and correlations with alcohol challenge results of between 0.4 and 0.6, even when the two measures are administered over a decade apart (Schuckit et al., 1997a,b). Scores of a person's recollections from the first five times of drinking ("first five") correlate in predicted directions with the family histories of alcoholism and a person's alcohol-related problems in white, Hispanic and black men and women in the United States and Europe, even when the number of effects experienced and the recent quantity and frequency of drinking are used as covariates (Daeppen et al., 2000; Schuckit et al., 1997a,b, 2000b, 2001b, in press; Wall et al., 1999). The need for a higher number of drinks for an effect indicates a lower observed LR at a given blood alcohol concentration (BAC) in alcohol challenges. A recent article assessing over 2,000 adults (mean age 39) reported that the first five SRE scores appeared to reflect genetic influences, even after controlling for additional factors (Schuckit et al., 2001a). For 449 father-son dyads, the correlation in the early drinking SRE score was 0.22 (p < .01); for 561 mother/daughter dyads, the correlation was 0.18 (p < .001); whereas for 410 unrelated female and 369 unrelated male dyads, the correlations were nonsignificant (0.02 and 0.03, respectively).Few data are available on the performance of the early life first five SRE scores in adolescents. This is unfortunate because an adequate performance of LR using this measure in young populations could be especially useful for testing mediational models and in linkage- or association-based genetic analyses. This brief report presents data regarding the familial nature of SRE-based LR scores among a sample of teenagers.MethodThe data for these analyses were ... |
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