Ethanol consumption andDRD2gene TaqI a polymorphism among socially drinking males

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Abstract
The dopaminergic system in the human brain is thought to play a major role in the development of alcohol consumption habits and alcoholism. It has been reported that homozygous D2−/− knock‐out mice lacking D2 receptors consume about 50% to 60% less ethanol than wild‐type D2+/+ mice, and heterozygous mice have an intermediate level of alcohol consumption. The DRD2 gene TaqI A polymorphism has been suggested to associate with a low D2 receptor density in post mortem and in vivo measurements. Numerous association studies on this polymorphism and alcoholism have shown most controversial results. We studied whether DRD2 TaqI A genotype affects alcohol consumption in an ethnically homogenous, representative sample of 1,019 Finnish Caucasian males. After excluding the abstainers from the study, the self‐reported alcohol consumption among the remaining 884 non‐abstainers was compared in the TaqI A genotype groups (A1/A1, A1/A2, A2/A2). The alcohol consumption of the homozygous A1/A1 group was about 30% lower than in A1/A2 group, and 40% lower than in A2/A2 group (P = 0.042 and 0.041 in a sociodemographic variable‐adjusted multivariate model). The results indicate an association between DRD2 genotype and alcohol consumption habits in humans. These results in the large sample of non‐alcoholic males are also opposite to some previous findings on the higher A1 allele frequency among alcoholic populations.