In order to understand whether the strong association was driven primarily by the patients with alcoholic liver disease, cirrhosis, or pancreatitis, we also analyzed the alcoholic subjects without any alcohol-related diseases. The results showed consistently strong evidence of association in the combined populations, particularly in the Asian populations, in both allelic and genotypic analyses (Table 1). For instance, the allelic P values for the combined populations and Asian populations were 8×10−8 (OR = 1.53 (1.31, 1.78)) and 6×10−30 (OR = 2.14 (1.87, 2.44)), respectively; and the allelic P value for the combined Asians and Europeans was 2×10−7. They were also significant under the dominant and recessive models.
