School Achievement, IQ, and Risk of Alcohol Use Disorder: A Prospective, Co-Relative Analysis in a Swedish National Cohort.
- Authors
- Kendler, Kenneth S; Ohlsson, Henrik; Sundquist, Jan; Sundquist, Kristina
- Year
- 2017
- Journal
- Journal of studies on alcohol and drugs
- PMID
- 28317498
- DOI
- 10.15288/jsad.2017.78.186
- PMCID
- PMC5554099
OBJECTIVE: Most studies suggest that poor cognitive functioning in adolescence increases risk of alcohol use disorders (AUDs). We seek to clarify the causes of this association. METHOD: In Swedish individuals born from 1972 to 1990 in whom cognitive functioning was assessed by school achievement at age 16 years (males and females, N = 1,796,048) and by IQ at ages 18-20 (males, N = 554,644), we examined the hazard ratio (HR) for AUD ascertained from public registries. We examined and modeled risk of AUD in cousins, full siblings, and monozygotic twin pairs discordant for school achievement and IQ scores. RESULTS: In males and females, HRs for AUD per standard deviation of increasing school achievement equaled 0.47 (95% CI [0.46, 0.47]) and 0.52 (95% CI [0.51, 0.53]), respectively. In males, the HR for AUD per standard deviation of increasing IQ was 0.54 (95% CI [0.53, 0.55]). Excluding onsets of AUD within 5 years of the cognitive evaluation did not weaken the association, nor did controlling for alcohol intake and problems at IQ assessment. The HRs for AUD in relative pairs were higher than those observed in the population but significantly less than unity. We predicted the following HRs for AUD in discordant monozygotic twins for school achievement in males and females and for IQ in males: 0.66 (95% CI [0.62, 0.70]), 0.67 (95% CI [0.62, 0.73]), and 0.72 (95% CI [0.65, 0.79]), respectively. CONCLUSIONS: Cognitive ability in adolescence, assessed by two different measures, strongly predicts risk of AUD. This association cannot be explained by early symptoms of AUD impairing performance. Co-relative analyses suggest that this association arises partly from familial confounding and partly from a causal impact of low cognitive ability on AUD risk.
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In this knowledge base
| Title | Year | PMID |
|---|---|---|
| Genome-wide association study of alcohol consumption and use disorder in 274,424 individuals from multiple populations. | 2019 | 30940813 |
External
| Title | Authors | Journal | Year | Link |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Gender differences in alcohol use disorder treatment: sociodemographic, mental health, personality, and neuropsychological factors. | Høiland K et al. | — | 2025 | → |
| School achievement in adolescence and the risk of mental disorders in early adulthood: a Finnish nationwide register study. | Weckström T et al. | — | 2023 | → |
| Alcohol related disorders among elite male football players in Sweden: nationwide cohort study. | Ueda P et al. | — | 2022 | → |
| Predicting Alcohol Dependence Symptoms by Young Adulthood: A Co-Twin Comparisons Study. | Stephenson M et al. | — | 2021 | → |
| Socio-economic differences in all-cause mortality in people with alcohol use disorder: a prospective cohort study. | Rossow I et al. | — | 2021 | → |
| Association of parental substance use disorder with offspring cognition: a population family-based study. | Khemiri L et al. | — | 2020 | → |
| Genome-wide association study of alcohol consumption and use disorder in 274,424 individuals from multiple populations. | Kranzler HR et al. | — | 2019 | → |
| Protective Effects of Pregnancy on Risk of Alcohol Use Disorder. | Edwards AC et al. | — | 2019 | → |
| Social class, social mobility and alcohol-related disorders in Swedish men and women: A study of four generations. | Sidorchuk A et al. | — | 2018 | → |
| The Association of Externalizing and Internalizing Problems with Indicators of Intelligence in a Sample of At-Risk Children | Kavish N et al. | — | 2017 | — |