{"id":43150,"date":"2015-10-11T01:04:46","date_gmt":"2015-10-11T01:04:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/?p=43150"},"modified":"2016-12-11T19:09:47","modified_gmt":"2016-12-11T19:09:47","slug":"no-native-americans-arent-genetically-more-susceptible-to-alcoholism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/?p=43150","title":{"rendered":"No, Native Americans aren’t genetically more susceptible to alcoholism"},"content":{"rendered":"

No, Native Americans aren’t genetically more susceptible to alcoholism<\/a><\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

The Verge<\/a>
\n2015-10-02<\/p>\n

Maia Szalavitz<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

Time to retire the ‘firewater<\/a>‘ fairytale<\/em><\/p>\n

When Jessica Elm<\/a>, a citizen of the Oneida Tribe of Indians of Wisconsin<\/a>, was studying for her master\u2019s degree in social work, she frequently heard about how genes were responsible for the high risk of alcoholism among American Indians. But her own family\u2019s experience \u2014 and the research, she discovered \u2014 tells a very different story.<\/p>\n

The “firewater<\/a>” fairytale that Elm came to know all too well goes like this: Europeans introduced Native Americans to alcohol, which they were genetically unprepared to handle. That happenstance led to alcoholism rates that are around twice as high as those seen in whites \u2014 and alcohol-related death rates, which are at least tripled. In this view, colonization didn\u2019t make conquered people susceptible to heavy drinking \u2014 genes did…<\/p>\n

…In fact, there\u2019s no evidence that Native Americans are more biologically susceptible to substance use disorders than any other group, says Joseph Gone<\/a>, associate professor of psychology at the University of Michigan. American Indians don\u2019t metabolize or react to alcohol differently than whites do, and they don\u2019t have higher prevalence of any known risk genes…<\/p>\n

Read the entire article here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

No, Native Americans aren’t genetically more susceptible to alcoholism The Verge 2015-10-02 Maia Szalavitz Time to retire the ‘firewater‘ fairytale When Jessica Elm, a citizen of the Oneida Tribe of Indians of Wisconsin, was studying for her master\u2019s degree in social work, she frequently heard about how genes were responsible for the high risk of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,2039,459,8,3015,4481,20],"tags":[21359,21364,21362,21363,21360,21358,21361],"class_list":["post-43150","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles","category-health-medicine","category-history","category-media-archive","category-native-americans","category-social-work","category-usa","tag-jessica-elm","tag-jessica-h-l-elm-lepak","tag-joseph-gone","tag-joseph-p-gone","tag-maia-szalavitz","tag-oneida-nation-of-wisconsin","tag-the-verge"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43150","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=43150"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43150\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":43151,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43150\/revisions\/43151"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=43150"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=43150"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=43150"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}