In most of the studies, the patients were explicitly described as “alcohol dependent” (these “definite” alcohol dependent patients are designated as “AD” in Table 1) while six studies had no such clear description and one study indicated that the patients included both AD and alcohol abuse subjects. Therefore, these “definite” alcohol dependent patients without any specification regarding alcohol-related diseases were also analyzed independently. The results showed no major change and the association was still significant in the combined populations, in particular, in Asians and combined Asians and Europeans, for both allelic and genotypic analyses (Table 1). For example, the allelic P values were 4×10−8 (OR = 1.66 (1.39, 1.99) and 7×10−30 (OR = 2.14 (1.87, 2.44)) in all the populations and Asian populations, respectively. Evidence of significant association was also found in the studies of non-Asians (Table 1).
