Although GWASs of subjects of European descent have struggled to identify and replicate SNPs associated with alcohol dependence, a recent GWASs of a sample of 1,721 Korean men reported associations with P values of 10−58 and lower for SNPs in moderate to high linkage disequilibrium4 with SNPs in the ALDH2 gene, including rs671 (Baik et al. 2011). In this study, carriers of the protective allele of the SNP rs11066280 in the gene C12orf51, which frequently occurs together with rs671 in ALDH2 (the SNP that inactivates ALDH2), had a 13-fold increased risk for alcohol flushing and a corresponding 5-fold decreased likelihood of developing alcohol problems consistent with alcohol dependence. Because this variant is rare in subjects of European and African descent, this strong finding is not seen, nor expected, in non-Asian populations.
