Chunk #15 — A brief review of major methods used to evaluate alcohol reaction phenotypes — Two relevant LR phenotypes — Low LR — High stimulation with alcohol
The primary source of these data involved 190 subjects who consumed oral alcohol during two five-minute periods separated by five minutes rest (e.g., King et al., 2004, 2006 2011, 2014, 2016). Similar results were seen in a separate sample of 104 individuals (Roche et al., 2014). At study entry, the 190 participants were on average age 26 (range 21–35), 104 of whom habitually engaged in weekly binge drinking, consuming 5+ drinks for men and 4+ for women one to four times per week, with between 10 and 40 drinks per week for at least the prior two years (King et al., 2006, 2011, 2016). The 86 light drinkers consumed ≤ 5 drinks per week with ≤ 5 binges per year. In a 2-year follow-up of almost all the subjects, greater alcohol-induced stimulation and lower sedation predicted increases over baseline binge drinking (King et al., 2011), a finding confirmed for stimulation in a 6-year follow-up of 156 subjects (83%) (King et al., 2014). The heavy drinkers were more likely to have alcoholic relatives, and animal studies have confirmed stimulation effects of alcohol in some genetic lines of alcohol referring rodents (e.g., Cunningham et al., 1992; Masur et al., 1986).
