Should you go on that second date? A gene that influences how much alcohol we drink may also shape our decisions when choosing a partner.
It’s no secret that many couples have similar patterns when it comes to alcohol use, but pinning down the underlying reason has been tricky. One explanation could be that a couple’s drinking habits become more alike over time.
Laurence Howe at the University of Bristol says previous studies on the link between alcohol use and partner choice have relied mostly on self-reported data. “We wanted to disentangle the possibilities using a genetic approach,” he says.
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Howe and his team analysed the genetic data of 47,000 couples in the UK Biobank and compared this with each person’s reported alcohol consumption. In particular, they were interested in a variant of the ADH1B gene, which is known to be associated with heavier drinking.
They found that regular drinkers were more likely to pair up with similar drinkers, and that each person in such a pair was more likely to have this gene variant. People who didn’t drink very often tended to form relationships with other light drinkers, and both partners in such a couple were more likely to have a different variant of the same gene – one that is associated with experiencing unpleasant alcohol side effects.
“This suggests that alcohol consumption directly influences mate choice, adding to the growing evidence that humans are more likely to select a similar mate,” says Howe. “Our genotypes cannot be changed by our partner’s habits.”
However, the study did suggest a person’s partner can have a small influence on their drinking habits. Each unit increase in a partner’s weekly alcohol intake was linked to an average 0.26 unit increase in their significant other’s weekly consumption.
Victoria Jackson at the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research in Melbourne, Australia, says that while the study tackles an interesting question, it has limitations. The “heavy drinking” genetic variant has also been linked to lower socioeconomic status, she says. “It’s possible that the genetic similarity amongst the couples could be a result of them choosing partners based on other factors.”
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