During the teen years, adolescents have ample opportunity to experience initiation into alcohol consumption. While research has shown that many environmental factors such as the number of drinking friends, family income level and parental involvement all contribute to how adolescents decide whether to drink, there are also biological factors at play.

One very difficult aspect of estimating risk of alcohol consumption based on biological and environmental factors is determining which factors may overrule another. For instance, is it more important that a teen have parental involvement or a genetic disposition that does not raise the risk for alcohol consumption?

A study published in the September 2010 issue of Alcoholism: Clinical & Experimental Research examined the effects of religiosity on the genetic variance of alcohol consumption. It found that religiosity may be an environmental factor that moderates the genetic effects on alcohol use during adolescence. The research did not support the same effects during early adulthood.

The researchers recruited 1,432 twin pairs. The pairs were categorized as identical or monozygotic (MZ) or fraternal or dizygotic (DZ) and examined during two time periods; adolescence and early adulthood. Participants included 312 male MZ pairs, 379 female MZ pairs, 231 male DZ pairs, 235 female DZ pairs and 275 opposite sex DZ pairs.

The researchers used the Value on Religion Scale to measure religiosity and the Composite International Diagnostic Interview-Substance Abuse Module to determine problem alcohol use.

Tanya M. Button, a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Colorado at Boulder and corresponding author of the study, expected that religiosity would act as a moderator on alcohol consumption for both adolescence and early adulthood. Button explained that alcohol-related phenotypes are often dependent on a person’s social background.

Button said that those with a religious background may be less likely to express alcohol-related phenotypes than those who do not have a religious background.

The results of the study showed that greater religiosity in adolescence was a moderating factor for adolescents, but in early adults it did not play the same role. Likewise, research has shown that people from urban backgrounds, unmarried women and nonreligious people are more likely than their counterparts to have genes play an important role in alcohol-related phenotypes.

The results of the study suggest that adolescents with a high level of religiosity are less at risk for developing alcohol-related problems, even if they possess a gene that predisposes them to risky alcohol use.