Table 1.

Examples of ALDH2 polymorphisms and associated pathophysiological responses.

ALDH2 genotype	Glu487Lys	ALDH activity	Effect	Reference
ALDH2*2/2	Lys/Lys	Inactive	Less alcohol consumption, highest alcohol sensitivity, less periodontitis progression	(Nishida et al., 2010)
			Facial flushing, nausea, drowsiness, headache, positive patch testing after drinking	(Harada et al., 1981; Ishibashi et al., 2010)
			A risk conferring factor for alcohol dependence	(Vaswani et al., 2009)
			Decreased suicide behavior	(Hishimoto et al., 2010)
			Increased risk of myocardial infarction	(Jo et al., 2007)
			Increased morbidity of osteoporosis	(Yamaguchi et al., 2006)
			Increased risk of esophageal cancer	(Yang et al., 2010)
ALDH2*1/2	Glu/Lys	Inactive	Suicide behavior in male	(Hishimoto et al., 2010)
			Increased risk of squamous cell carcinoma of upper aerodigestive tract, head and neck cancer in moderate and heavy drinkers	(Yokoyama et al., 2010)
			Increased risk of myocardial infarction	(Jo et al., 2007)
			Increased risk of esophageal cancer among never/rare, moderate and heavy drinkers, as well as among ex-drinkers.	(Yang et al., 2010)
ALDH2*1/1	Glu/Glu	Active	Higher alcohol consumption, lowest alcohol sensitivity	(Nishida et al., 2004)
			Decreased facial flushing, nausea, drowsiness, headache, positive patch testing after drinking	(Harada et al., 1981; Ishibashi et al., 2010)
			Increased suicide behavior	(Hishimoto et al., 2010)
			Increased colorectal cancer risk	(Gao et al., 2008)
			Decreased risk of myocardial infarction	(Jo et al., 2007)