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Drinking three glasses of wine a week could be in your DNA: The amount of alcohol you get through is ‘significantly’ influenced by your genes, study finds
- Researchers analysed genes and studied alcohol intake of 3.4 million people
- Amount of wine you get through in a week is significantly influenced by genes
- It could add as many as three drinks to someone’s average weekly consumption
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If a bottle of wine disappears rather quickly after you open it, your genes may be partly to blame.
The amount of wine someone gets through in a week is significantly influenced by their genes, a study suggests.
This could add as many as three drinks to someone’s average weekly consumption.
Researchers looked at genetic analysis for almost 3.4 million people, mostly from a white European background, including people in the UK, who were asked how many alcoholic drinks they consumed in an average week.
If a bottle of wine disappears rather quickly after you open it, your genes may be partly to blame
For those from a European background, the 10 per cent of people with the highest genetic score linked to drinking put away more than seven drinks a week on average.
The 10 per cent of people with the lowest genetic score drank less than four drinks a week on average.
Professor Dajiang Liu, a co-author of the study, from Penn State University, said: ‘How much you drink may not be entirely down to whether you had a stressful day, or how good the bottle of wine in the fridge tastes – genes play an important partial role.
‘These findings could also help to explain why there are some people who are always available to go to a bar for a drink, or willing to open a bottle of wine.
‘However we can’t entirely blame our genes, as behaviour is very important in drinking behaviours, and it is always possible for people to decide to cut down on alcohol and lead a healthier life.’
People have around 20,000 genes – the ‘blueprint’ for everything from eye colour to intelligence and behaviour – in almost every cell in their body.
Humans are 99.9 per cent identical in their genetic make-up, sharing most of the same genes, but have variations in some of them which can be linked to lifestyle choices.
Researchers were able to identify the thousands of genetic variations seen more commonly in people who drank more alcohol in an average week.
The 10 per cent of white people of European ancestry with the highest ‘score’ for these genetic variations were found to consume more than seven standard drinks a week on average
The 10 per cent of white people of European ancestry with the highest ‘score’ for these genetic variations were found to consume more than seven standard drinks a week on average.
A standard drink, as defined in the study, is approximately a small 150ml glass of wine at 12 per cent strength, a small 350ml bottle of beer at five per cent strength, or just over one shot of a spirit like gin.
The new study, published in the journal Nature, found people with a higher genetic likelihood of being smokers also tended to consume more alcoholic drinks per week.
Those who drank more per week also had a higher genetic risk of having an alcohol problem.
Researchers found more than 2,300 genetic variations linked to drinking and smoking in total.
Professor Liu said: ‘We’ve now found more than 1,900 extra genes that are linked to alcohol and tobacco use and had not previously been identified.
‘A large majority of these genetic variations are shared by people from different ethnic groups, but how people choose to live is still more important than what is in their DNA.’