Alleles for the alcohol metabolizing enzymes have been found to occur at different frequencies in different ethnic groups. A variant of one of the alcohol dehydrogenase genes, ADH1B*3, has been found almost exclusively in populations of African ancestry (Osier et al., 2002) and has been shown to be associated with lower rates of alcohol dependence (Edenberg et al., 2006; Wall et al., 2003). The present study is the first to test subjective and physiological response to alcohol as a potential mechanism of the protective effect of this allele.
