biostudies-literatureBernabeu ESwiss National Science FoundationMedical Research CouncilAlzheimer's SocietyWellcome TrustBiotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council14https://www.ebi.ac.uk/biostudies/studies/S-EPMC11762500biostudies-literatureUnknown17(1)Alcohol consumption is an important risk factor for multiple diseases. It is typically assessed via self-report, which is open to measurement error through recall bias. Instead, molecular data such as blood-based DNA methylation (DNAm) could be used to derive a more objective measure of alcohol consumption by incorporating information from cytosine-phosphate-guanine (CpG) sites known to be linked to the trait. Here, we explore the epigenetic architecture of self-reported weekly units of alcohol consumption in the Generation Scotland study. We first create a blood-based epigenetic score (EpiScore) of alcohol consumption using elastic net penalized linear regression. We explore the effect of pre-filtering for CpG features ahead of elastic net, as well as differential patterns by sex and by uClinical epigeneticsBlood-based epigenome-wide association study and prediction of alcohol consumption.PMC11762500104036/Z/14/ZAS-PG-19b-010221890/Z/20/ZBB/F019394/1PCEGP3-181181BB/W008793/1181181220857/Z/20/Z010MC_UU_00011/5Taylor JAValdes-Hernandez MDCKresovich JKYousefi PMcCartney DLVallejos CABernabeu ECorley JSandler DPManiega SMWardlaw JMSuderman MHillary RFHarris SECox SRChybowska ADEvans KLMarioni REMcIntosh AMCampbell ABastin MERobinson MRXu ZfalseBlood-based epigenome-wide association study and prediction of alcohol consumption.Alcohol consumption is an important risk factor for multiple diseases. It is typically assessed via self-report, which is open to measurement error through recall bias. Instead, molecular data such as blood-based DNA methylation (DNAm) could be used to derive a more objective measure of alcohol consumption by incorporating information from cytosine-phosphate-guanine (CpG) sites known to be linked to the trait. Here, we explore the epigenetic architecture of self-reported weekly units of alcohol consumption in the Generation Scotland study. We first create a blood-based epigenetic score (EpiScore) of alcohol consumption using elastic net penalized linear regression. We explore the effect of pre-filtering for CpG features ahead of elastic net, as well as differential patterns by sex and by u2025-01-01T00:00:00Z2025 Jan2025-04-04T22:08:13.534Z2025-04-04T22:08:13.534ZS-EPMC117625003986386810.1186/s13148-025-01818-y