A Test for Alcoholism Risk

Government scientists have developed a blood test to diagnose alcoholism that may also offer a way to screen people for an inherited risk of becoming an alcoholic.

The test, which measures two enzymes in the blood, could also help researchers understand what makes some people prone to becoming dependent on alcohol and possibly lead to improved treatment, researchers said.

“It is intriguing to speculate that the abnormalities (detected by the test) are measures of the underlying genetic susceptibility to alcoholism,” added Dr. Theodore Reich of the Jewish Hospital of St. Louis.

But Colleen O’Connor, a spokeswoman for the American Civil Liberties Union, said the existence of such a test raises concerns that it could be abused, especially by employers who might use it to discriminate against employees.

Boris Tabakoff, scientific director of the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, and his colleagues tested the blood of 95 alcoholics and 33 non-alcoholics. They found that the activity of two enzymes--monoamine oxidase and adenylate cyclase--among the alcoholics was distinctly different from the non-alcoholics. He noted that more research is needed to confirm the findings.