Genes cause teen girls to smoke, drink and use drugs – but boys are influenced more by friends and family than genetics
(PRWEB) July 23, 2003
Genes affecting conduct problems, more so than environment, cause teenaged girls to smoke, drink alcohol and use drugs. But boys who experiment with drugs and alcohol tend to be influenced more by their family and friends than genes.
Researchers at Virginia Commonwealth University, in fact, found that genetic factors appear to have no significant effect on the decision of teen boys to use illegal drugs. The study is published in the July issue of the Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry and Allied Disciplines.
“Our findings show that risk factors for substance use are different in boys and girls,” said Judy L. Silberg, Ph.D., assistant professor of human genetics and a researcher at the Virginia Institute for Psychiatric and Behavioral Genetics at VCU. “In girls, there was a significant genetic influence on all substance abuse in adolescence. But, with boys, environmental factors, including a dysfunctional family and peers who use drugs and alcohol, had a pervasive influence.”
Dr Silberg and her colleagues studied family data collected over three years on 1,071 adolescent twin girls and boys, aged 12-17, who participated in the Virginia Twin Study of Adolescent Behavioral Development. The VTSABD is an ongoing 15-year study designed to understand the role of genetic and social factors in the development of psychiatric problems in children and adolescents.
Their statistical analysis found that, for boys and girls, no one risk factor was to blame for smoking, drinking and drug use in young teens. In both boys and girls, genetics and environment played a role – but the degree of influence of each varied for girls and boys.
“In the past, there has been a tendency to seek separation of nature and nurture in an attempt to determine which exerted the greater influence on different traits or disorders,” Silberg said. “It is now clear that this dichotomization is a misleading oversimplification because of the interactions and correlations between genetics and environment.”
The study could have implications for how clinicians treat substance abuse in teens.
“Because girls’ use of substances is controlled by the same genes that are linked to behavioral problems, treatment efforts that target the antisocial behavior itself may be effective,” Silberg said. “Boys’ substance use may be reduced by directly altering those family and peer characteristics that are most influential.”