Age of Drinking Initiation as a Risk Factor for Alcohol Use Disorder Symptoms is Moderated by ALDH2*2 and Ethnicity.

ABSTRACT:

Background

An early age of drinking initiation (ADI) has been associated with increased risk for alcohol use disorders (AUDs), but the consistency of this risk across diverse samples has not been well studied. The purpose of this study was to examine whether the pathway from ADI to AUD symptoms by early adulthood is moderated by ethnicity and possessing an alcohol-metabolizing gene ALDH2*2 variant allele.

Methods

We used multigroup structural equation modeling, including 5 groups split by ethnicity and ALDH2*2, to examine the consistency of the path from ADI to AUD symptoms in 604 Chinese-, Korean-, and White-American college students. We further examined the effects of ALDH2*2, ethnicity, and their interaction in Asians to better understand their unique contributions to the

SUBMITTER: Luczak SE 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5626619 | biostudies-literature | 2017 Oct

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature