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Should Alcoholism be Treated by the NHS? ELIZABETH BURGE
A large volume of scientific research on alcoholic substance uses disorders has found that it is heritable through genetics. In a twin study carried out by Kaij, L in 1960 the concordance rate of alcoholism in fraternal and identical twins was studied. The concordance rate of twins refers to the presence of the same trait in both members. In this study a 54% concordance rate between the identical twins was found, which was higher than the fraternal twins’ rate. This is evidence for a genetic basis for alcoholism as identical twins have 100% shared DNA while fraternal twins share 50% of DNA. Therefore, the identical twin rate being higher than the fraternal twin rate supports this as the amount of shared DNA increases so does the rate of alcoholism. However, the majority of the twins used in this study were brought up together. This means there might be an influence of environment on the results, and it may not be completely down to genetics. For this reason, adoption studies can be used as they create a clear separation of genes and environment. (Walters, 2002) found that adoptees have higher rates of alcoholism when biological parents are alcoholics, this shows that even with a different environment the genetics of a biological alcoholic parent still increase the chance of the child becoming
an alcoholic even though they have had no influence from this parent. In an overall study of twin and adoptive studies, Verhulst found that Alcohol Abuse Disorder was 49% heritable. Multiple studies supported the validity of this heritability estimate. All of these results being around 50% have an extremely high genetic correlation, for this reason it cannot be said that alcoholism is a self-inflicted illness when there is strong evidence suggesting it is down to a person’s genetics. As concordance rates among twin and adoptive studies were around 50%, the other 50% must be due to something else. This could be a traumatic event, which may be significant in relation to their alcoholism. A study of adolescents with alcohol dependence or abuse showed they are 6 to 12 times more likely to have a history of being physically abused, and are 18 to 21 times more likely to have a history of sexual abuse. The results of this study demonstrate that trauma and other adverse life events are strongly associated with alcohol use disorders in adolescents. Therefore, although it appears that individuals that engage in excessive drinking choose to, research shows that a large part of this ‘decision’ is already pre-determined by our biology, genetic make up and environmental conditions.
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