The current study was designed to test the association between ADH1B polymorphisms and alcohol response in an African American sample. Prior studies have demonstrated that ADH1B*3 alleles are associated with faster elimination of alcohol (Thomasson et al., 1995), and in vitro studies support greater ethanol-oxidizing activity in enzymes encoded by ADH1B*3 compared to ADH1B*1 (Lee et al., 2004). However, as Scott and Taylor (2007) have noted, research on alcohol metabolism in African-Americans is limited. To date, no study has examined differences in response to alcohol as the mechanism for the protective effect of this allele.
