Genetic and addiction risk: A new genetic analysis has identified gene variants that appear to influence both addiction risk and educational achievement, but in opposite directions. Researchers report that people with a higher inherited risk for addiction were also more likely to have lower levels of educational attainment.
The study, published in the journal Addiction, found that the genetic overlap between addiction and education could raise the likelihood of developing a substance use disorder by as much as 66%.
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Lead author Judit Cabana-Domínguez of Spain’s Vall d’Hebron Research Institute said the link between substance use problems and struggles in school has been recognised for years, with each often worsening the other. The new findings, she said, suggest shared genetic factors may explain part of that long-observed relationship.
For the study, researchers recruited more than 1,400 people being treated for substance use disorders at Vall d’Hebron Hospital in Barcelona. The participants had disorders involving substances including cocaine, opioids, cannabis and sedatives.
Using a genome-wide association approach, a method that scans the full genome to identify variants associated with specific traits or conditions, the team flagged a set of genetic variants tied to both higher addiction susceptibility and lower educational attainment. The researchers also noted that the same cluster of variants has been linked in other work to poorer health outcomes and socioeconomic disadvantage, alongside substance use disorders.
The authors stressed that the results show correlation, not cause. The analysis cannot say whether lower educational attainment increases addiction risk, whether addiction leads to school problems, or whether both processes occur together.
Even so, Cabana-Domínguez said the findings point toward education as a potentially useful area for prevention strategies, suggesting that policies supporting higher educational attainment could help health systems strengthen efforts to reduce substance use disorders.