In this study we observed substantial differences in alcohol drinking behavior across race/ethnicity groups, particularly in East Asians who have a larger proportion of non-drinkers than other groups, and fewer drinks per week among those who do drink. This appears to be driven by ALDH2 rs671, which is the strongest effect SNP in our GWAS analyses and seen almost exclusively in the East Asian group. Our findings are consistent with previous genetic association studies which have reported strong evidence for association with alcohol consumption-related traits in the region of 12q24 in Asian populations, most likely due to linkage disequilibrium with ALDH2 rs671.41–43, 50 Our results support that rs671 is a single hit with no other independently associated risk variants nearby, as our conditional analysis completely attenuated the result for previously reported SNPs at 12q24. Our second strongest SNP association, between ADH1B rs1229984 and alcohol consumption in non-Hispanic whites, is consistent with previous findings in European Americans.26, 51 However, ADH1B rs1229984 had a relatively smaller effect in our East Asian sample in comparison to other race/ethnicity groups, suggesting that its effect
