[Relationship between alcoholism and genotypes of acetaldehyde-metabolizing enzymes].

Abstract

The genotypes of the CYP2E1 and ALDH2 loci in alcoholic and non-alcoholic (healthy) Japanese were investigated to examine the relationship between the polymorphisms of CYP2E1 (C1/C2) and ALDH2 (ALDH2*1/ALDH2*2), and the susceptibility to alcoholism. There was no significant difference in C2 gene frequency between alcoholics (0.20) and non-alcoholics (0.19), while there was a significant difference in ALDH2 allele frequency, suggesting that the C2 allele of CYP2E1 may have nothing to the risk of developing alcoholism in Japanese, whereas the ALDH2*1 allele may influence drinking behavior and the development of alcoholism.