use patterns (self-report over the last 6 months). The second study [101] addressed those issues and found a much larger number of associations, suggesting that some of these findings, if replicated, could point toward the development of clinical epigenetic biomarkers. It is interesting that the study of Philibert and colleagues [101], did not replicate the associations or large delta beta values (one over 50%, 23 others over 20%) of the report of Zhao and colleagues [100], suggesting these differences may be due to study design or underlying population differences. Finally, in addition to the inconsistency of results, global methylation is unlikely to translate as a biomarker for alcohol use due to its lack of specificity.
