Jump to full article: Reuters, 2009-10-30
Author: Amy Norton
Intro: Churchgoers have been found to have lower rates of drinking and smoking than those who spend their Sundays elsewhere. Now a new study suggests that for adults, it may not be church attendance itself that explains much of the phenomenon. It might be genes.
The study, which included nearly 1,800 adult male twins, found that in adolescence, the relationship between church attendance and lower rates of drinking and smoking appeared largely a matter of "shared" environment -- those factors influencing both members of a twin pair.
That is, teenagers who attended church regularly were more likely to want to follow their parents' wishes and conform to community expectations.
By adulthood, however, those environmental influences had faded, the researchers found. Instead, genes seemed to account for the relationship between church-going and lesser alcohol and nicotine use.
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SOURCE: American Journal of Psychiatry, October 2009.
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