Few studies have reported on the association between alcohol phenotypes and ADH1A polymorphisms, perhaps reflecting the current belief that ADH1A enzymes are most active in ethanol metabolism during fetal and early life, gradually losing function in adulthood (63). One of the fine-mapping studies on ADH variants and alcohol dependence reported signals for three ADH1A SNPs (52). For two of these SNPs, typed in the present study, we found very modest signals for drinking before pregnancy, in line with published evidence of association between rs3819197 (in strong LD with one of our SNPs) and alcohol consumption (23).
