Unexpected patterns of genetic correlation were observed when comparisons were made to other alcohol-related measures, indicating that those measures reflect aspects of alcohol use that are genetically distinguishable. AD was genetically correlated with alcohol consumption in a meta-analysis of the Alcohol Genome-wide Association (AlcGen) and Cohorts for Aging and Research in Genomic Epidemiology Plus (CHARGE+) consortia16 (rg = 0.695, SE = 0.155, p = 6.9E-6) but only modestly with alcohol consumption from the recent large UK Biobank analysis17 (rg = 0.371, SE = 0.092, p = 5.2E-5). No significant genetic correlation was observed between AD and a recent GWAS of the Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Test (AUDIT) in a 23andMe cohort18 (rg = 0.076, SE = 0.171, p = 0.65), perhaps due to the low levels of drinking and drinking-related problems in that population18. AD is, however, nominally genetically correlated with GWAS of delay discounting in the 23andMe sample19 (rg = 0.487, SE = 0.178, p = 6.0E-3).
