Specifically, in our current study, we observed that carriers of the minor alleles, C for SNP rs279858 and T for SNP rs279844, which have been associated with AD in numerous studies and diverse populations (Covault et al., 2004; Covault et al., 2008; Enoch et al., 2009; Fehr et al., 2006; Lappalainen et al., 2005) had lower “Negative” effects of alcohol. Of note, when examining SNP rs279858, some authors report the minor allele as G, which is comparable to our results with the C allele given that genotyping was performed in the forward strand in our study. Our findings are consistent with the hypothesis that risk of AD in carriers of these minor alleles may, in part, be mediated by the decreased subjective negative responses to alcohol. These findings are in agreement with previous studies showing that a low level of overall response to alcohol appears to represent an important component of inherited risk for AUDs, supporting the low level of response model (Heath et al., 1999; Schuckit and Smith, 1996, 2000; Trim et al., 2009). Adding further evidence, another study
