UConn Agricultural and Resource Economics Ph.D. Alumna
Dr. Chen Zhu, Associate Professor, College of Economics and Management, China Agricultural University
Seminar Title: “Alcohol Consumption and Health Outcomes: Evidence from Mendelian Randomization”
Abstract:
Alcohol consumption has been shown to be associated with more than 60 diseases, and recent debates have challenged the conventional view that low-to-moderate alcohol drinking has a protective effect on health conditions such as coronary heart disease and diabetes. In this study, we investigate the causal influence of drinking behavior on various health outcomes by utilizing a Mendelian randomization (MR) on the genetic variation of aldehyde dehydrogenase 2 gene (ALDH2). The genetic basis of the MR approach relies upon the random allocation of genes at meiosis in humans, which likely resembles the random assignment into treatment groups in randomized controlled trials (RCT). Through collaboration with WeGene, a leading private genetic testing company in China, we conduct an online survey of alcohol drinking behavior based on its customer database in December 2018. The latest sample contains 1,034 respondents from mainland China with linked drinking behavior and genotyping data. A special variant of the ALDH2 genotype that is common in Chinese (affecting about 35-45% of East Asians, but less than 1% of Caucasians) is known to cause the Alcohol Flushing Response (also known as Asian Flush) and adverse alcohol reaction (e.g. nausea, headache after drinking) due to decreased acetaldehyde metabolism, thereby plays a strong protective role against heavy drinking behavior and can be used as an instrumental variable (IV) to disentangle environmental confounders, which are otherwise very difficult to fully account for in observational studies. Our preliminary results confirm an inverse relationship between the presence of ALDH2*2 allele (rs671) and general drinking frequency, binge drinking frequency, as well as the maximum number of drinks consumed in a single occasion. By using ALDH2*2 allele as a genetic IV for drinking behavior, we find that higher alcohol consumption is causally associated with increased risks of allergy and chronic liver diseases. On the other hand, the IV point estimates of drinking behaviors on asthma, cancer, cardio cerebral diseases, diabetes, fatty liver, gout, and hypertension reveal no substantial associations. Our results highlight the practicability of using genetic information to gain new insights into the long-term health outcomes of alcohol drinking behavior.
Monday, March 25, 2019
11:00am-12:15pm
Location: W.B. Young 304
View the full Spring 2019 ARE Seminar Schedule
For more information, contact: Tatiana Andreyeva at tatiana.andreyeva@uconn.edu