[ALDH phenotype in eating disorders with and without alcoholism].

Individuals who have inactive low Km aldehyde dehydrogenase (ALDH2) are much less likely to develop alcoholism than those who have active ALDH2. On the other hand, frequent alcoholism has been reported in eating disorder patients. Whether inactive ALDH2 works as an inhibitory factor for alcoholism in these patients is not known. We compared the ALDH2 phenotype in eating disorder patients with and without alcoholism. Among the 25 subjects (4 with anorexia nervosa, 6 with anorexia nervosa and bulimia nervosa, 13 with bulimia nervosa and 2 with eating disorder not otherwise specified according to the DSM-III-R), 13 were alcoholics and 12 were non-alcoholics. Isoelectric focusing of hair roots samples demonstrated that 8% of the alcoholic subjects had the inactive ALDH2, while 58% of the non-alcoholic subjects had this variant form of the isozyme (p < 0.01). The results suggest inactive ALDH2 has a similar inhibitory effect for alcoholism as in eating disorder patients as has been reported in normal populations.