8 ms·

Native Americans aren't genetically more susceptible to alcoholism

45 points by fisherjeff 11y ago

VT_Drew 11y ago
No shit. We took their land, killed their families and friends, and quarantined them to "reserves". Then introduced them to alcohol. What did you think would happen? It isn't genetics, it is escape-ism.
- sp332 11y ago
  Of course that is a component, but no one was sure if it was the whole story. Now we know.
  - deleted 11y ago
    [deleted]
- ams6110 11y ago
  This is the story of all humanity up until the last couple of centuries. Tribes, countries, empires killing and conquering. It's not a uniquely American phenomenon. It's still happening in many places today. I think we need to stop leaning on past atrocities (without endorsing or excusing them in any way) as an excuse for not being responsible adults in the here and now. We can't change the past, we can only live the best life we can going forwards.
  - prutschman 11y ago
    Who do you include in "we"?
  - coldtea 11y ago
    >This is the story of all humanity up until the last couple of centuries. Tribes, countries, empires killing and conquering. It's not a uniquely American phenomenon. It's still happening in many places today. Americans (European settlers that is, but later Americans too) did it in an unprecedented scale -- similarly to European colonialists elsewhere at the same time. And unlike those older tribes which saw power for what it is, they presumed to have the moral high ground (and/or a "manifest destiny").
    - ta83742389 11y ago
      Unprecedented seems a little strong: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mongol_invasions_and_conquests https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mongol_invasions_and_conquests https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wars_and_anthropogenic_disasters_by_death_toll https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wars_and_anthropogenic...
    - tsotha 11y ago
      No, it's not at all unprecedented. That's the way the world worked until the mid 20th century.
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
- jqm 11y ago
  That stuff happened generations ago so I don't think it's the main reason there is such a drinking problem among Natives today. Having spent some time around Native Americans here are some observations. Often when they drink they get carried away and drink to excess for the session. They often don't just sit and chat while doing it but engage in some fairly crazy behavior like turning over cars etc. Alcohol does appear to affect them differently and it's not "alcoholism" like someone's Anglo uncle who sits in front of the TV quietly downing a fifth of scotch every night until his liver gives out. In my limited observations, it's more like a group of 16 year old getting blind drunk down by the river in the effects it produces. I don't think it's all environmental. I think the effects of alcohol are in general different than it is with other racial groups. Incidentally, the effects of sugar appear to also be worse as well. Go to any reservation and look at the incidents of diabetes and obesity. I don't have an explanation... maybe some of it is cultural, but I think there is a genetic/evolutionary component making the effects of alcohol and carbohydrates much more harmful to Native Americans. I think they need to keep looking.
  - protomyth 11y ago
    > That stuff happened generations ago so I don't think it's the main reason there is such a drinking problem among Natives today. NO, boarding schools, forced adoption, forced relocation to urban environments happened within the current generations. Anyone thinking this is old problems has not looked at new from Indian country. "Having spent some time around Native Americans here are some observations" I am typing this from a reservation and grew up here. I am a lineal descendant on the tribal roll (not of the tribe I lived with) but missed being an enrolled member by 1/8 blood quota. My Dad is enrolled. Grouping all of the tribes is as foolish as grouping all of Europe. Dakota have very different behavior than Seminole or Navajo. What you saw is not indicative of all the tribes, but alcoholism is a problem with most. I have never observed the behavior you described. I have observed fights and violence. Diabetes and Obesity are well know problems and have a lot to do with diet of people who were exiled to places where food would not grow and hunting became scarce. A lot of "Native American" food came from that era and is not exactly healthy.
    - 11y ago
sandworm101 11y ago
Given that strong alcoholic drinks have been around for at most a few thousand years it seems silly to assume that any group has yet evolved any genetic adaptations. Cultural adaptations are certainly a different question. I know of many native communities in my area (Canada) that have very specific substance abuse issues. They are tied to unique economic, sociological and even geographical* situations, but nobody takes genetic predisposition seriously. *A typical geographic situation would be the prevalence of oxycodone over alcohol in northern communities. Pills are smaller/easier to transport by air than liquids.
- jerf 11y ago
  Lactose tolerance is believed to have developed in the last 5,000 - 10,000 years. There was recently a news story about the Inuit having an adaptation that is at most 20,000 years old [1], and probably unique to them. The deeper we dig into genes the more stuff like this we'll find. It wasn't a silly theory. It may be wrong, but it wasn't silly. [1]: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/22/science/inuit-study-adds-twist-to-omega-3-fatty-acids-health-story.html?_r=0 http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/22/science/inuit-study-adds-t...
  - sandworm101 11y ago
    Except that neither of those examples involve new substances. Lactose has been around for literally millions of years. Genes for dealing with it, or not, are part of what makes us mammals (ie things with mammary glans that nurse their young). And the gene found in the Inuit has not appeared recently. It exists nearly worldwide and is far older than its recent rise to prominence in the inuit. It has not evolved anew. Alcohol is new. While old genes may have evolved to deal with addiction generally, any gene specifically addressing alcohol could not possibly have evolved in the brief time the new world native communities were genetically disconnected from europe/asia/africa. I also seriously doubt that alcohol was predominant enough in any ancient population for it to have an impact on survivability. Only the rich could afford to drink that much.
    - prutschman 11y ago
AlexWest 11y ago
Of course it's not genetic, it's environmental.
- Kalium 11y ago
  It's not a binary question, nature or nurture, here. It can be both.
nostromo 11y ago
> Rates of all types of addiction — not just alcohol — are elevated in aboriginal peoples around the world, not only in America. It’s unlikely that these scattered groups randomly happen to share more vulnerability genes for addiction than any other similarly dispersed people. This isn't sound science. Just look at a map of lactose tolerance and you will find that people not exposed to milk-producing livestock until recently are much more likely to be lactose intolerant. Convincing research would look for genetic markers directly -- or perhaps look at alcoholism amongst children adopted across cultures.
- gavazzy 11y ago
  There is likely a combination of social and genetic factors; while the social factors mentioned in the article affect the rates of alcoholism, there is a significant genetic component, which the article claims has no evidence, but ignores the evidence that exists! Alcohol metabolism in humans varies among populations, with some having a greater capability to metabolize it. The article fails to even mention the purported genetic causes (lack of ADH or ALDH), which would seem to be important if you are going to claim that the existing evidence is wrong. That genetics affects rates of alcoholism is not a controversial opinion: the NIH has a report on the variance caused by genetics ( http://pubs.niaaa.nih.gov/publications/arh301/3-4.htm http://pubs.niaaa.nih.gov/publications/arh301/3-4.htm ), noting that "Native Americans and Alaskan Natives are five times more likely than other ethnicities in the United States to die of alcohol-related causes. Native Americans are predisposed to alcoholism because of differences in the way they metabolize alcohol." This makes sense when you consider the environment of the social sciences today, which favors nurture over nature. Anything that is influenced by social interaction (e.g. stress causing alcoholism) must be caused by it, even if there actually are genetic influences. Unfortunately, there is a cost to the emphasis on social interaction. Suppose that some people have a genetic predisposition to alcoholism, but they believe that it is caused only by social factors. Then they will be more inclined to put themselves at risk by drinking with friends. (A similar argument for genetic testing can be made for the APOE gene, which modulates risk of Alzheimer's from drinking. For instance, people with APOE 2/2 are LESS likely to get Alzheimer's if they drink, while those with APOE 4/4 are MORE likely to get Alzheimer's. Claiming that Alzheimer's is caused merely by social interaction while ignoring this genetic effect leads to everyone being worse off).
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
- tlb 11y ago
  The title is just the hypothesis. Their conclusion is the opposite: "The findings suggest that it is unlikely that Native Americans carry a genetic variant that predisposes them to alcoholism. Certain variants of ADH and ADLH do have a protective affect against alcoholism in some Native American people; however, these findings do not explain the high incidence of alcoholism in the tribes that were studied."
ta83742389 11y ago
I'd be interested in hearing from, say, a biologist or a medical doctor, too. But the article only interviews academics from social work and psychology. I'd like to see some links to research on genetics. The article links only research on environmental factors in addiction. The article's conclusion may well be right, but it's not convincing if you don't agree with the conclusion before reading it.
- cpncrunch 11y ago
  You can't really trust these press releases in general. A quick search turns up this: http://pubs.niaaa.nih.gov/publications/arh301/3-4.htm http://pubs.niaaa.nih.gov/publications/arh301/3-4.htm The gist seems to be that although some groups do have different alcohol metabolizing genes, Native Americans don't differ from the general population, so their alcohol problems can't be explained by genetics. If you really want to get to the bottom of it, you'd need to spend an hour or two on google scholar.
  - tsotha 11y ago
    I don't find the genetic argument convincing. There are genes we know of that seem to be related to alcoholism and/or addiction, and native Americans don't seem to have them any more than anyone else. But that doesn't mean there aren't genes related to alcoholism we don't know about.
    - cpncrunch 11y ago
      I think they're just debunking the notion that we have already found the "alcoholism gene" in Native Americans.
- x0x0 11y ago
  google heritable epigenetics and you'll find plenty of papers; there is new research in behavioral epigenetics showing inherited stress hormone changes in descendents of holocaust survivors
Torgo 11y ago
A person with a masters degree in social work assures us that the genetic evidence collected to date is bunk. >severe stress doesn’t just affect one generation: it is passed down, both socially — affecting parenting — and physiologically, by actually changing how children’s genes are read, which can alter both brain and body, a phenomenon known as epigenetics. Research on children of Holocaust survivors, for example, shows changes in reading instructions for genes related to stress. Citing debunked garbage study, appealing to science like magic when it confirms biases. Article immediately discarded.
- canjobear 11y ago
  Fwiw, the claim that the genetic evidence is bunk comes from "Joseph Gone, associate professor of psychology at the University of Michigan", not a social worker.
  - protomyth 11y ago
    I would prefer an actual geneticist and I cannot help but think of type of food intolerance that recently appeared on HN to show me this might be bunk.
- coldtea 11y ago
  >A woman with a masters degree in social work assures us that the genetic evidence collected to date is bunk. Perhaps you missed the whole: "In fact, there’s no evidence that Native Americans are more biologically susceptible to substance use disorders than any other group, says Joseph Gone, associate professor of psychology at the University of Michigan. American Indians don’t metabolize or react to alcohol differently than whites do, and they don’t have higher prevalence of any known risk genes." thing. >Article immediately discarded. Bias immediately detected.
  - tsotha 11y ago
    "Associate professor of psychology"? Exactly what qualifies him to make that kind of statement?
- 11y ago
notNow 11y ago
Isn't the word "disposed" more suitable to this context than "susceptible"?
andyl 11y ago
A cultural marxist parable wrapped in junk science.
- protomyth 11y ago
  Yeah, this is a typical important sounding Verge article that ignores all the research and nuance in the study of Native Americans including some fine research by Native Americans living on the reservation.
Asbostos 11y ago
I've heard this "generations of abuse" argument before to explain the low socioeconimic status of blacks in America and natives in other countries. But is there any evidence for it other than "blame the more successful class"? I know behaviors are passed between generations - keeping poor people's children poor, violent people's children violent, etc. But does it really work over hundreds of years? Without evidence it's nothing more than an excuse. There's also the political correctness phenomenon of being allowed to blame metabolism for racial differences but not another genetic factor - inherited intellectual differences. It even makes some sense that there should be differences - a small group of people who evolved over 1000 years through tribal fighting might end up mentally or intellectually different from others who lived in larger social groups with relatively non-violent lives. It's quite possible that in some societies, intellectuals are systematically filtered out of the gene pool while in others, violent people are. See for instance the Ashkenazi Jews https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ashkenazi_Jewish_intelligence https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ashkenazi_Jewish_intelligence

45 points by fisherjeff 11y ago

No shit. We took their land, killed their families and friends, and quarantined them to "reserves". Then introduced them to alcohol. What did you think would happen? It isn't genetics, it is escape-ism.

sp332 11y ago
Of course that is a component, but no one was sure if it was the whole story. Now we know.
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
ams6110 11y ago
This is the story of all humanity up until the last couple of centuries. Tribes, countries, empires killing and conquering. It's not a uniquely American phenomenon. It's still happening in many places today. I think we need to stop leaning on past atrocities (without endorsing or excusing them in any way) as an excuse for not being responsible adults in the here and now. We can't change the past, we can only live the best life we can going forwards.
- prutschman 11y ago
  Who do you include in "we"?
- coldtea 11y ago
  >This is the story of all humanity up until the last couple of centuries. Tribes, countries, empires killing and conquering. It's not a uniquely American phenomenon. It's still happening in many places today. Americans (European settlers that is, but later Americans too) did it in an unprecedented scale -- similarly to European colonialists elsewhere at the same time. And unlike those older tribes which saw power for what it is, they presumed to have the moral high ground (and/or a "manifest destiny").
  - ta83742389 11y ago
    Unprecedented seems a little strong: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mongol_invasions_and_conquests https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mongol_invasions_and_conquests https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wars_and_anthropogenic_disasters_by_death_toll https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wars_and_anthropogenic...
  - tsotha 11y ago
    No, it's not at all unprecedented. That's the way the world worked until the mid 20th century.
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
jqm 11y ago
That stuff happened generations ago so I don't think it's the main reason there is such a drinking problem among Natives today. Having spent some time around Native Americans here are some observations. Often when they drink they get carried away and drink to excess for the session. They often don't just sit and chat while doing it but engage in some fairly crazy behavior like turning over cars etc. Alcohol does appear to affect them differently and it's not "alcoholism" like someone's Anglo uncle who sits in front of the TV quietly downing a fifth of scotch every night until his liver gives out. In my limited observations, it's more like a group of 16 year old getting blind drunk down by the river in the effects it produces. I don't think it's all environmental. I think the effects of alcohol are in general different than it is with other racial groups. Incidentally, the effects of sugar appear to also be worse as well. Go to any reservation and look at the incidents of diabetes and obesity. I don't have an explanation... maybe some of it is cultural, but I think there is a genetic/evolutionary component making the effects of alcohol and carbohydrates much more harmful to Native Americans. I think they need to keep looking.
- protomyth 11y ago
  > That stuff happened generations ago so I don't think it's the main reason there is such a drinking problem among Natives today. NO, boarding schools, forced adoption, forced relocation to urban environments happened within the current generations. Anyone thinking this is old problems has not looked at new from Indian country. "Having spent some time around Native Americans here are some observations" I am typing this from a reservation and grew up here. I am a lineal descendant on the tribal roll (not of the tribe I lived with) but missed being an enrolled member by 1/8 blood quota. My Dad is enrolled. Grouping all of the tribes is as foolish as grouping all of Europe. Dakota have very different behavior than Seminole or Navajo. What you saw is not indicative of all the tribes, but alcoholism is a problem with most. I have never observed the behavior you described. I have observed fights and violence. Diabetes and Obesity are well know problems and have a lot to do with diet of people who were exiled to places where food would not grow and hunting became scarce. A lot of "Native American" food came from that era and is not exactly healthy.
  - 11y ago

sandworm101 11y ago

Given that strong alcoholic drinks have been around for at most a few thousand years it seems silly to assume that any group has yet evolved any genetic adaptations. Cultural adaptations are certainly a different question. I know of many native communities in my area (Canada) that have very specific substance abuse issues. They are tied to unique economic, sociological and even geographical* situations, but nobody takes genetic predisposition seriously. *A typical geographic situation would be the prevalence of oxycodone over alcohol in northern communities. Pills are smaller/easier to transport by air than liquids.

jerf 11y ago
Lactose tolerance is believed to have developed in the last 5,000 - 10,000 years. There was recently a news story about the Inuit having an adaptation that is at most 20,000 years old [1], and probably unique to them. The deeper we dig into genes the more stuff like this we'll find. It wasn't a silly theory. It may be wrong, but it wasn't silly. [1]: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/22/science/inuit-study-adds-twist-to-omega-3-fatty-acids-health-story.html?_r=0 http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/22/science/inuit-study-adds-t...
- sandworm101 11y ago
  Except that neither of those examples involve new substances. Lactose has been around for literally millions of years. Genes for dealing with it, or not, are part of what makes us mammals (ie things with mammary glans that nurse their young). And the gene found in the Inuit has not appeared recently. It exists nearly worldwide and is far older than its recent rise to prominence in the inuit. It has not evolved anew. Alcohol is new. While old genes may have evolved to deal with addiction generally, any gene specifically addressing alcohol could not possibly have evolved in the brief time the new world native communities were genetically disconnected from europe/asia/africa. I also seriously doubt that alcohol was predominant enough in any ancient population for it to have an impact on survivability. Only the rich could afford to drink that much.
  - prutschman 11y ago

AlexWest 11y ago

Of course it's not genetic, it's environmental.

Kalium 11y ago
It's not a binary question, nature or nurture, here. It can be both.

nostromo 11y ago

> Rates of all types of addiction — not just alcohol — are elevated in aboriginal peoples around the world, not only in America. It’s unlikely that these scattered groups randomly happen to share more vulnerability genes for addiction than any other similarly dispersed people. This isn't sound science. Just look at a map of lactose tolerance and you will find that people not exposed to milk-producing livestock until recently are much more likely to be lactose intolerant. Convincing research would look for genetic markers directly -- or perhaps look at alcoholism amongst children adopted across cultures.

gavazzy 11y ago
There is likely a combination of social and genetic factors; while the social factors mentioned in the article affect the rates of alcoholism, there is a significant genetic component, which the article claims has no evidence, but ignores the evidence that exists! Alcohol metabolism in humans varies among populations, with some having a greater capability to metabolize it. The article fails to even mention the purported genetic causes (lack of ADH or ALDH), which would seem to be important if you are going to claim that the existing evidence is wrong. That genetics affects rates of alcoholism is not a controversial opinion: the NIH has a report on the variance caused by genetics ( http://pubs.niaaa.nih.gov/publications/arh301/3-4.htm http://pubs.niaaa.nih.gov/publications/arh301/3-4.htm ), noting that "Native Americans and Alaskan Natives are five times more likely than other ethnicities in the United States to die of alcohol-related causes. Native Americans are predisposed to alcoholism because of differences in the way they metabolize alcohol." This makes sense when you consider the environment of the social sciences today, which favors nurture over nature. Anything that is influenced by social interaction (e.g. stress causing alcoholism) must be caused by it, even if there actually are genetic influences. Unfortunately, there is a cost to the emphasis on social interaction. Suppose that some people have a genetic predisposition to alcoholism, but they believe that it is caused only by social factors. Then they will be more inclined to put themselves at risk by drinking with friends. (A similar argument for genetic testing can be made for the APOE gene, which modulates risk of Alzheimer's from drinking. For instance, people with APOE 2/2 are LESS likely to get Alzheimer's if they drink, while those with APOE 4/4 are MORE likely to get Alzheimer's. Claiming that Alzheimer's is caused merely by social interaction while ignoring this genetic effect leads to everyone being worse off).

deleted 11y ago

[deleted]

tlb 11y ago
The title is just the hypothesis. Their conclusion is the opposite: "The findings suggest that it is unlikely that Native Americans carry a genetic variant that predisposes them to alcoholism. Certain variants of ADH and ADLH do have a protective affect against alcoholism in some Native American people; however, these findings do not explain the high incidence of alcoholism in the tribes that were studied."

ta83742389 11y ago

I'd be interested in hearing from, say, a biologist or a medical doctor, too. But the article only interviews academics from social work and psychology. I'd like to see some links to research on genetics. The article links only research on environmental factors in addiction. The article's conclusion may well be right, but it's not convincing if you don't agree with the conclusion before reading it.

cpncrunch 11y ago
You can't really trust these press releases in general. A quick search turns up this: http://pubs.niaaa.nih.gov/publications/arh301/3-4.htm http://pubs.niaaa.nih.gov/publications/arh301/3-4.htm The gist seems to be that although some groups do have different alcohol metabolizing genes, Native Americans don't differ from the general population, so their alcohol problems can't be explained by genetics. If you really want to get to the bottom of it, you'd need to spend an hour or two on google scholar.
- tsotha 11y ago
  I don't find the genetic argument convincing. There are genes we know of that seem to be related to alcoholism and/or addiction, and native Americans don't seem to have them any more than anyone else. But that doesn't mean there aren't genes related to alcoholism we don't know about.
  - cpncrunch 11y ago
    I think they're just debunking the notion that we have already found the "alcoholism gene" in Native Americans.
x0x0 11y ago
google heritable epigenetics and you'll find plenty of papers; there is new research in behavioral epigenetics showing inherited stress hormone changes in descendents of holocaust survivors

Torgo 11y ago

A person with a masters degree in social work assures us that the genetic evidence collected to date is bunk. >severe stress doesn’t just affect one generation: it is passed down, both socially — affecting parenting — and physiologically, by actually changing how children’s genes are read, which can alter both brain and body, a phenomenon known as epigenetics. Research on children of Holocaust survivors, for example, shows changes in reading instructions for genes related to stress. Citing debunked garbage study, appealing to science like magic when it confirms biases. Article immediately discarded.

canjobear 11y ago
Fwiw, the claim that the genetic evidence is bunk comes from "Joseph Gone, associate professor of psychology at the University of Michigan", not a social worker.
- protomyth 11y ago
  I would prefer an actual geneticist and I cannot help but think of type of food intolerance that recently appeared on HN to show me this might be bunk.
coldtea 11y ago
>A woman with a masters degree in social work assures us that the genetic evidence collected to date is bunk. Perhaps you missed the whole: "In fact, there’s no evidence that Native Americans are more biologically susceptible to substance use disorders than any other group, says Joseph Gone, associate professor of psychology at the University of Michigan. American Indians don’t metabolize or react to alcohol differently than whites do, and they don’t have higher prevalence of any known risk genes." thing. >Article immediately discarded. Bias immediately detected.
- tsotha 11y ago
  "Associate professor of psychology"? Exactly what qualifies him to make that kind of statement?
11y ago

notNow 11y ago

Isn't the word "disposed" more suitable to this context than "susceptible"?

andyl 11y ago

A cultural marxist parable wrapped in junk science.

protomyth 11y ago
Yeah, this is a typical important sounding Verge article that ignores all the research and nuance in the study of Native Americans including some fine research by Native Americans living on the reservation.

Asbostos 11y ago

I've heard this "generations of abuse" argument before to explain the low socioeconimic status of blacks in America and natives in other countries. But is there any evidence for it other than "blame the more successful class"? I know behaviors are passed between generations - keeping poor people's children poor, violent people's children violent, etc. But does it really work over hundreds of years? Without evidence it's nothing more than an excuse. There's also the political correctness phenomenon of being allowed to blame metabolism for racial differences but not another genetic factor - inherited intellectual differences. It even makes some sense that there should be differences - a small group of people who evolved over 1000 years through tribal fighting might end up mentally or intellectually different from others who lived in larger social groups with relatively non-violent lives. It's quite possible that in some societies, intellectuals are systematically filtered out of the gene pool while in others, violent people are. See for instance the Ashkenazi Jews https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ashkenazi_Jewish_intelligence https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ashkenazi_Jewish_intelligence