Time.news – What is it that leads suddenly and at different ages to drink alcohol and smoke? Which tic, anxiety or woodworm corrupts us? A study, published in the journal Nature, reveals that while cultural factors are certainly important and make the difference in terms of intake and addiction, much depends on biological factors for some people more prone to these forms of addiction. Scientists have even found “4,000 genetic associations that have a certain influence on alcohol or tobacco consumption” according to age.
In the study, which includes more than three million people (80% of European descent, 20% of the rest of the world), it is observed that, despite living in a similar environment, people with a higher genetic predisposition smoke more . “Individuals in the top 10% of genetic predisposition to tobacco smoke an average of twice as many cigarettes per day as those in the bottom 10%” (14 cigarettes versus 7), says Javier Costas, lead researcher in the Institute’s Psychiatric Genetics Group. on the health of Santiago de Compostela (Idis).
The analysis is a first step to begin identifying the biological risk factors for smoking or alcoholism, understanding them and using them in health policies, but also notes that some variants that help predict the number of cigarettes smoked per day by one person “are related to those that increase the risk of relapse among cocaine users”. And the genetic study then highlighted correlations between “alcoholism and attention deficit disorder, schizophrenia or depression”.
However, in a similar 2019 study, some scientists, including some of the signatories to the just-released one, looked for a correlation between alcoholism, which is about 49 percent heritable, and other mental disorders, looking for compatibilities.” between alcoholism and attention deficit disorder, schizophrenia or depression”.
According to Javier Costas, however, the main limitation of the work published by Nature and similar others, “is the definition of the characters under study, generally declared by the participants themselves and very little specific”.
For example, two very different patterns of alcohol use, such as regular drinking with meals or weekly drinking, may result in the same number of alcoholic beverages consumed per week. “It is also known that people with health problems tend to declare their consumption of alcohol and tobacco lower than they really are,” he explains.
Cultural factors certainly make the difference in the number of people who have this habit, observe the scholars, so much so that in 2014 50 years have passed since the Surgeon General of the United States, the highest health authority in the country, published a report on the health effects of tobacco, and since then in this half century the percentage of American smokers has dropped in that half century from 42% to 18%.
A cultural change that certainly helped prevent at least 8 million premature deaths.