A controlled family history study of Tourette's syndrome, II: Alcoholism, drug abuse, and obesity

Abstract

The behaviors associated with Gilles de la Tourette's syndrome (TS), including impulsive, compulsive, attentional, learning, conduct, and mood disorders, have often been described as substrates for the development of alcoholism and/or drug abuse. As the authors' experience with TS pedigrees indicated that alcoholism and/or drug abuse were common in relatives of TS probands, they examined, by the family history technique, 1750 relatives over 14 years of age in 130 TS proband and 25 control families. Significant, life-disrupting problems with alcoholism and/or drug abuse were present in 14.5% of the relatives of TS probands compared with 4.4% of the control relatives (p less than .00001). Among parents of TS probands, the ratio of affected fathers to mothers was 2:1. Marked obesity (greater than 100 lb) was present in 10.8% of the mothers and 3.2% of all relatives of TS probands compared with 0.8% of all control relatives (p = .01). In parents of TS probands, the ratio of marked obesity in fathers to that in mothers was 1:4.5. When the categories of alcoholism and/or drug abuse and marked obesity were combined, 17.4% of all relatives of TS probands were affected compared with 4.6% of all control relatives (p less than .0001) and the ratio of fathers to mothers with these disorders was 1.1:1. Among all relatives of TS probands, 20.8% of those with tics and 17.4% of those without tics had problems with alcoholism and/or drug abuse or obesity or both. This finding suggests that when the Gts gene(s) is expressed in this form it is about equally likely to occur in persons with and persons without tics. The similarities between TS and early onset, male predominant, Type II alcoholism suggest that in some cases, alcoholism and/or drug abuse in males and severe obesity in females are related, genetically controlled, compulsive behaviors.