[quote=Rustico]Thanks for sticking with me.That 33% for genetic component alcoholism seems very high to me compared to other poly-genetic multi-factorial disease occurrences in families.[/quote]
Maybe that’s because alcoholics and people with mood disorders are more likely to procreate than people with spina bifida or some other obvious, physical congenital defect? Just wondering…
There are families with disorders and diseases that seem to occur even more frequently than 33% of the time when the genes are present.
For sickle cell anemia, it appears that if both parents carry the gene(s), the child has a 25% chance of being born with it.
“Sickle cell anemia is an autosomal recessive genetic disorder caused by a defect in the HBB gene, which codes for hemoglobin. The presence of two defective genes (SS) is needed for sickle cell anemia. If each parent carries one sickle hemoglobin gene (S) and one normal gene (A), each child has a 25% chance of inheriting two defective genes and having sickle cell anemia; a 25% chance of inheriting two normal genes and not having the disease; and a 50% chance of being an unaffected carrier like the parents.”
“More recent studies have evaluated the rate of occurrence of BRCA1 and BRCA2 mutations and breast cancer in women without such a strong family history of breast cancer, who were more like women in the general population. These studies have estimated that from 36% to 68% of the women with BRCA1 mutations in the general population would be expected to have breast cancer by age 70. The risk associated with BRCA2 ranged between no change in risk to 37% of the women developing cancer by age 70.”
If there are multiple genes involved where alcoholism is concerned, and if alcoholic parents are likely to mate with other alcoholics, it seems reasonable to me to believe that alcoholics have a pretty significant chance of passing along an “alcoholic gene” or two, or three…to their children who then might have a pretty significant chance of becoming “alcoholics,” themselves.
