Influence of family alcoholism history on alcohol metabolism, sensitivity, and tolerance.

As part of the Colorado Alcohol Research on Twins and Adoptees (CARTA), 35 subjects who reported having an alcoholic parent or sibling [family alcoholism history positive (FHP)] were matched with 35 controls [family alcoholism history negative (FHN)]. All subjects were tested three times on a battery of physiological, motor, and cognitive performance tasks before the ingestion of alcohol, then were tested three more times over a 3-hr period during which their blood alcohol concentration (BAC) was brought up to and maintained at about 0.10 g/dl by an initial large dose of ethanol and subsequent topping doses. FHP subjects scored significantly lower than FHN subjects on the Raven's Progressive Matrices and on some of the cognitive tasks before alcohol ingestion. FHP and FHN subjects, however, did not significantly differ in absorption and clearance of alcohol or in sensitivity and acute tolerance scores calculated on the repeated measures. Contrary to expectations, FHP subjects perceived themselves as being more impaired by alcohol than FHN subjects, and there was little evidence to suggest that they were less sensitive to variations in BAC.