The relationship between bipolar disorder and alcoholism: a controlled family study

Abstract

SYNOPSISBipolar disorder and alcoholism are familial disorders. The familial–genetic relationship between both is controversial and has received insufficient study. This study explores whether bipolar disorder and alcoholism share familial risk factors, and whether the co-occurrence of lifetime diagnosis of bipolar disorder and alcoholism is familial. We report on first-degree relatives of 146 consecutively admitted patients with either bipolar disorder or/and alcoholism; relatives of the patients (in total 728 relatives directly interviewed) were compared with first-degree relatives of 109 general population probands (320 relatives directly interviewed). Overlap between the familial components underlying bipolar disorder and alcoholism was not observed if the analysis was restricted to ‘pure’ diagnostic groups. Excess comorbidity between bipolar disorder and alcoholism was observed in relatives. Multiple sources for this excess of comorbidity between major affective disorders and alcoholism in families of probands with bipolar disorder are likely; in particular, we found evidence for a distinct subgroup of comorbid cases with familial comorbidity; however, excess comorbidity was also found in absence of familial loading with alcoholism.

Alcohol misuse in bipolar disorder. A systematic review and meta-analysis of comorbidity rates

“…However, lifetime prevalence of AUDs was reported by 31 independent clinical studies [8,63,7,3,5,4,9,12,15,18,22,24,28,32,33,55,[38][39][40][42][43][44][45][46][47]49,56,58,60,61,67], including 8309 subjects with BD, allowing us to calculate pooled lifetime prevalence.…”

“…Information on gender was presented in 17 of the clinical studies we identified [63,5,12,15,28,32,[38][39][40]42 (Fig. 2).…”

A Review of Co - Morbid Depression Among the Patients With Alcohol Dependence

“…Therefore the presence of one disorder may indicate an increased risk of the second. 22 For example, excess co-morbidity between bipolar disorder and alcoholism has been observed. The two disorders may share a common risk factor or factors that may be familial and therefore the presence of one disorder may indicate an increased risk of the second.…”

“…The two disorders may share a common risk factor or factors that may be familial and therefore the presence of one disorder may indicate an increased risk of the second. 22 Alcoholism may cause relapse in depressed patients and contributes to the course of the depressive illness. Depression, which has been successfully treated, may be relapsed by alcoholism.…”

The epidemiology of mood disorders

“…The high magnitude of comorbidity and co-aggregation of index disorders with other major psychiatric disorders (bipolar disorder and alcoholism, major depression and anxiety disorders, schizophrenia and drug dependence), in part induced by the classification system, as described previously, has been another impediment to identifying pathogenetic mechanisms for mood disorders [119][120][121][122][123][124]. For example, alcoholism, a well-established complication of bipolar illness, may mask the underlying features of bipolarity, leading to phenotypic misclassification in genetic studies [125].…”