Educational attainment impacts drinking behaviors and risk for alcohol dependence: results from a two-sample Mendelian randomization study with ~780,000 participants.

ABSTRACT: Observational studies suggest that lower educational attainment (EA) may be associated with risky alcohol use behaviors; however, these findings may be biased by confounding and reverse causality. We performed two-sample Mendelian randomization (MR) using summary statistics from recent genome-wide association studies (GWAS) with >780,000 participants to assess the causal effects of EA on alcohol use behaviors and alcohol dependence (AD). Fifty-three independent genome-wide significant SNPs previously associated with EA were tested for association with alcohol use behaviors. We show that while genetic instruments associated with increased EA are not associated with total amount of weekly drinks, they are associated with reduced frequency of binge drinking ≥6 drinks (ß_IVW = -0.198

SUBMITTER: Rosoff DB 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7182503 | biostudies-literature | 2021 Apr

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature