A group of international scientists has identified a gene variant that suppresses the desire to drink.\u00a0The discovery of this alcohol-regulating brain mechanism could lead to the development of medications that help drinkers reduce their alcohol consumption.<\/p>\n
Using data from over 105,000 light and heavy social drinkers, the researchers identified a variation in the beta-Klotho (KLB<\/em>) gene linked to the regulation of social alcohol use. This variant, found in just over 40 percent of the people in the study, is associated with a decreased desire to drink alcohol, so those with the variant tend to drink less than those without it.<\/p>\n The study, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences<\/em> (PNAS<\/em>), did not include people with alcohol use disorder, but a reduction in drinking in any population could have a large impact.\u00a0\u201cA small shift in consumption can have dramatic consequences on public health,\u201d stated the authors.<\/p>\n \u201cMuch of the research on alcohol consumption has focused on addiction. However, the overall burden of alcohol-associated disease reflects the total amount of alcohol consumed, not just addiction,\u201d said co-author Dr. Steven Kliewer, a professor of molecular biology and pharmacology at UT Southwestern.<\/p>\n The benefits of reducing levels of social drinking include reductions in heart disease risk, high blood pressure and obesity.<\/p>\n The study team said their work could result in developing medications to manage alcohol usage. \u201cThis is a hormone with some remarkable pharmacologic effects,\u201d said Dr. David Mangelsdorf, study co-author and Chair of Pharmacology at UT Southwestern. \u201cThe current study suggests that the FGF21-beta-Klotho pathway regulates alcohol consumption in humans and seems to point to a mechanism that we might be able to influence in order to reduce alcohol intake.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" A group of international scientists has identified a gene variant that suppresses the desire to drink.\u00a0The discovery of this alcohol-regulating brain mechanism could lead to the development of medications that help drinkers reduce their alcohol consumption. Using data from over … Continued<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pgdf.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2052"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pgdf.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pgdf.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pgdf.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pgdf.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2052"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/pgdf.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2052\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2064,"href":"https:\/\/pgdf.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2052\/revisions\/2064"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pgdf.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2052"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pgdf.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2052"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pgdf.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2052"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}