Twin and adoption studies have shown that half of the risk of alcohol dependence, a subtype of AUD, is heritable9. The single-nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) heritability of alcohol dependence in a family-based, European-American (EA) sample was 16%10 and 22% in an unrelated African-American (AA) sample11. In the meta-analysis of data from the UK Biobank (UKBB) and 23andMe, the SNP heritability of the total AUDIT was estimated to be 12%, while for the AUDIT-C and AUDIT-P it was 11% and 9%, respectively).
