To investigate whether the FTO rs9939609 A allele (a risk factor for obesity) is associated with measures of alcohol consumption.
Among individuals drinking alcohol, the obesity associated ‘AA’ genotype was also associated with lower total ethanol consumption (sex, age and BMI adjusted difference: 0.21 g/day, P = 0.012) and distinct drinking habits with relatively low frequency of drinks but larger volume consumed at a time as evidenced by: (i) association between ‘AA’ and frequency/amount of typical drinks (P = 0.023, multiple logistic regression analysis); (ii) inverse correlation between ‘AA’ and drink frequency adjusted for drink size (P = 0.007 for distilled spirits, P = 0.018 for beer); (iii) decreased frequency of ‘AA’ (OR = 0.46, P = 0.0004) among those who drank small amounts of distilled spirits (≤100 ml at a time) but frequently (≥1-2 times/week).
A decrease of ‘AA’ was also found in both cohorts of alcohol-dependent patients vs. geographically matched subjects from WOBASZ yielding a pooled estimate of OR = 0.59, CI: 0.40-0.88, P = 0.008).
Exploratory analysis showed that those with rs9939609 AA reported lower (by 1.22) mean number of cigarettes/day during a year of most intense smoking, (P = 0.003) and were older at start of smoking by 0.44 years (P = 0.016).
The FTO AA genotype, independently from its effect on BMI, is associated with measures of ethanol consumption and possibly tobacco smoking
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