Large Family Study Pinpoints Genetic Linkage In Drug Addiction
We’ve known for quite some time now that if your parents or grandparents had issues with addiction that you, too, would have a lower tolerance to drugs and alcohol. Now, researchers at Yale School of Medicine have identified a gene that shows a predilection for addiction to opioid-based drugs like OxyContin, heroin and morphine.
Joel Gelernter, MD is a professor in the Department of Psychiatry and the lead author of the Yale study. He said they recruited 393 small families, most of which had at least two members who were addicted to opiates. From there, they searched the whole genome to identify markers or gene variants that were only present in the addicted family members.
Gelernter said, “These results provide a first basis to identify genes for opioid dependence from a genome-wide investigation. Research in the laboratory now is focused on finding specific genes that modify risk for opioid dependence.”
The researchers were well aware of the fact that environmental factors also have a strong influence on whether or not someone uses drugs and alcohol. Further defining the genetic factors, however, will shed light on the environmental aspect of addiction as well, according to Gelernter: “Once specific genes that increase or decrease risk are known, we will be in a better position to figure out exactly what the environmental factors might be and, perhaps, how they can be modified to protect people who are genetically at risk.”
It’s great to find out more about the why’s of opiate addiction, but if you’re saddled with a heavy addiction to prescription painkillers. You can’t control your genes but by making use of a Suboxone detox and treatment, you can get your life back on track and, if you have kids, mitigate the damage that your addiction will do to them and eliminate one more environmental factor that could change their future.
For more information about this and other studies, check out Yale University.
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