We have previously shown in human genetic studies that variants of the pre‐proghrelin gene (GHRL) and GHSR‐1a gene (GHSR) are associated with various factors related to alcohol, nicotine and amphetamine dependence (Landgren et al. 2008, 2010, 2011a; Suchankova et al. 2013a). On the basis of these pre‐clinical and clinical observations, we sought to investigate whether single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNP) located in the GHRL and GHSR gene are associated with alcohol use assessed by the alcohol use disorders identification test (AUDIT) as well as smoking in a large Finnish cohort.
