Researchers noticed that people have the same genetic variant.
Alcohol abuse has become a real issue and this is why researchers are trying to figure out a way to reduce the consumption. While they were trying to find a drug that could regulate the consumption of alcohol researchers found a genetic variant that can lower the desire to drink.
In order to conduct this study, researchers tested genetics of heavy social drinkers and light social drinkers. These people were participants in other studies. The findings were published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Researchers were able to find a gene that makes people drink more or less. The name of the gene is beta-Klotho and it is just like a brake when it comes to drinking. In order to test their theory, researchers used mice which lacked this genetic variant.
Researchers noticed that people have the same genetic variant. When people had one type of this gene they used to drink less alcohol. Almost 42% of the people who were tested in this study had a low version of the genetic variant. The others had a different genetic variant and this is why they tend to drink more than they should.
Researchers mentioned that they hope to find a treatment for people who drink too much. This is just the beginning, using these findings researchers will find a way to create a treatment. They made this study because until now there was no information about what caused people to drink more or less.
Researchers also mentioned that there are no drugs made to make people drink less. There are some drugs that are used to “treat” alcoholics, but most of them made them feel sick. Experts said that a drinking problem is a serious one because more and more people tend to drink a lot more than they should.
“Excessive alcohol consumption is a major public health problem worldwide, causing an estimated 3.3 million deaths in 2012,” mentioned the author of the study.
This is the main reason for which researchers conducted this research. They wanted to find out what make people drink and what can be done in order to make them drink less. This could be a great step for finding a way to stop people from drinking.
What is your opinion about this study?
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