The purpose of this study was two-fold. We examined the association of rs1229984 in three large case-control studies of subjects of European and African descent in which alcohol dependence was directly diagnosed to test whether this SNP shows protective effects on alcohol dependence and alcohol consumption in non-Asian samples. We then confirmed the protective effect of the His48 allele in an adolescent and young adult population that is in the critical period of risk for the development of alcohol dependence.
