Background: There are substantial sex differences in all levels of alcohol involvement among U.S. adults. The goal of this study was to test whether the magnitude and sources of genetic and environmental influences on liability for alcohol abuse and dependence differ for men and women.
Methods: Structured personal interviews were used to assess DSM-III-R- and DSM-IV-defined alcohol abuse and dependence among 5091 male and 4168 female twins (including 1546 identical, 1128 same-sex fraternal, and 1423 opposite-sex pairs) born in Virginia between 1934 and 1974. Twin correlations were analyzed using structural equation modeling.
Results: The magnitude of twin-pair resemblance was similar across several definitions of alcoholism and was substantially higher among identical than fraternal pairs. The proportion of population variation in liability attributed to genetic factors was substantial among both women (55-66%) and men (51-56%), and we found little evidence of a role of environmental factors shared by family members. In all definitions studied, we could reject a model that the genetic sources of liability in the two sexes overlap completely.
Conclusion: In this first population-based study of alcoholism among male and female twins from the U.S., we found that genetic factors play a major role in the development of alcoholism in both sexes, that the magnitudes of genetic influence were equally high for men and women, and that the genetic sources of vulnerability are partially, but not completely, overlapping in men and women.