• Jung Ho Yang, Sun Seog Kweon, Young Hoon Lee, Seong Woo Choi, So Yeon Ryu, Hae Sung Nam, Kyeong Soo Park, Hye Yeon Kim, and Min Ho Shin.
• Department of Preventive Medicine, Chonnam National University Medical School, Hwasun, Korea.
• J. Korean Med. Sci. 2021 Aug 2; 36 (30): e195e195.

BackgroundSeveral studies have reported conflicting results regarding the relationship between alcohol consumption and cortisol levels. However, the causality between alcohol consumption and cortisol levels has not been evaluated.MethodsThis study examined 8,922 participants from the Dong-gu Study. The aldehyde dehydrogenase 2 (ALDH2) rs671 polymorphism was used as an instrumental variable for alcohol consumption. The association between the genetically predicted alcohol consumption and cortisol level was evaluated with Mendelian randomization (MR) using two-stage least squares regression.ResultsAlcohol consumption was positively associated with the serum cortisol level in both sexes in the observational analysis. In the MR analysis, the genetically predicted alcohol consumption was positively related to the cortisol level in men, with cortisol levels increasing by 0.18 μg/dL per drink per day. However, there was no relationship in women in the MR analysis.ConclusionThe predicted alcohol consumption according to the ALDH2 rs671 polymorphism was positively related to the cortisol levels, suggesting a causal relationship between alcohol consumption and cortisol levels.© 2021 The Korean Academy of Medical Sciences.

26 keywords...

hide…