The Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs published a study conducted by the University of Washington School of Medicine in St. Louis (USA), in which scientists investigated the possibility that some of the same genes may be involved in both conditions.
The study analyzed nearly 6,000 adult twins in Australia, both identical and fraternal. Dr. Melissa A. Munn-Chernoff is the lead author of the study, in which she explained that until now, only the genetic links between eating disorders and alcohol addiction in women had been examined, but men had never been studied. These problems can occur simultaneously in both men and women.
Overall, nearly 25% of men and 6% of women have been dependent on alcohol abuse at some point. In addition, nearly 11% of these men and 13% of women had binge eaten. Likewise, 14% of women had engaged in purging habits such as laxative abuse or self-induced vomiting.
What remains unclear is which genes are involved in these addictions. According to a statistical scale ranging from 0 (no shared genes) to 1 (all genes shared), scientists discovered that the genetic correlation between intake and alcoholism was statistically significant.
At Biosalud, we apply Predictive and Genomic Medicine, whose mission is to prevent various genetic diseases through the investigation of one or more genomic profiles.
