WEDNESDAY, June 4 (HealthDay News) -- College students with a
"dense" family history of alcoholism have the highest risk of
alcohol-use disorders, a U.S. study says.
While most university students tend to "mature out" of heavy
drinking by the time they're young adults, some develop alcohol-use
disorders, or AUDs. Most genetic research on family history of
alcoholism has focused on alcohol use by the parents, most often
the father.
But this study found that the density of family history of
alcoholism (FHA) is much more effective.
"Using a density measure of FHA can identify a greater number of
individuals who may be at risk for developing an alcohol problem.
The greater the number of affected relatives, the greater the
potential risk of developing an AUD. Ours is the first published
study to examine this measure among college students," first author
Christy Capone, a postdoctoral research fellow at Brown
University's Center for Alcohol and Addiction Studies, said in a
prepared statement.
The study included 293 female and 115 male undergraduates from a
northeastern U.S. university who completed an anonymous survey.
"Our use of a density measure identified a large proportion of
students, about 29 percent, who are at potentially greater risk for
development of AUDs based on their report of alcoholism among
first- and second-degree relatives," Capone said. "Our other key
finding was the relationship between FHA and other potential risk
factors -- behavioral undercontrol, age of onset of drinking (AOD),
and cigarette use."
"Family density appears to be a promising method to identify a
higher percentage of at-risk individuals," John Hustad, a research
associate at Brown University, said in a prepared statement. "For
example, in this study, approximately 44 percent of the at-risk
participants would have been missed if a typical family-history
measure had been used instead of the family-history density
approach."
Capone said: "It is important to remember than not everyone with
density of family alcoholism will go on to develop a long-term
problem with alcohol themselves. Alcohol dependence is a very
complex disorder, and FHA is but one influence on its development.
However, college students who are heavy drinkers and have greater
density of familial alcoholism are certainly at higher risk of
continuing to drink in a problematic fashion after the college
years."
The study was published online in the journal
Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research and was
expected to be in the August print issue.
More information
The U.S. National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism has
more about
alcohol abuse and alcoholism.
