Educational attainment has been associated with drinking behaviors in observation studies. We performed Mendelian randomization analysis to determine whether educational attainment causally affected drinking behaviors, including amount of alcohol intakes (in total and various types), drinking frequency, and drinking with or without meals among 334,507 white British participants from the UK Biobank cohort. We found that genetically instrumented higher education (1 additional year) was significantly related to higher total amount of alcohol intake (inverse-variance weighted method (IVW): beta = 0.44, 95% confidence interval (CI) 0.40-0.49, P = 1.57E-93). The causal relations with total amount and frequency of alcohol drinking were more evident among women. In analyses of different types of alcohol, higher educational attainment showed the strongest causal relation with more consumption of red wine (IVW beta = 0.34, 95% CI 0.32-0.36, P = 2.65E-247), followed by white wine/champagne, in a gender-specific manner. An inverse association was found for beer/cider and spirits. In addition, we found that 1 additional year of educational attainment was causally related to higher drinking frequency (IVW beta = 0.54, 95% CI 0.51-0.57, P = 4.87E-230) and a higher likelihood to take alcohol with meals (IVW: odds ratio (OR) = 3.10, 95% CI 2.93-3.29, P = 0.00E + 00). The results indicate causal relations of higher education with intake of more total alcohol especially red wine, and less beer/cider and spirits, more frequent drinking, and drinking with meals, suggesting the importance of improving drinking behaviors, especially among people with higher education.

中文翻译：

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教育程度和饮酒行为：英国生物银行的孟德尔随机研究。

在观察研究中，受教育程度与饮酒行为有关。我们对来自英国生物银行队列的 334,507 名英国白人参与者进行了孟德尔随机化分析，以确定受教育程度是否会影响饮酒行为，包括饮酒量（总量和各种类型）、饮酒频率以及用餐或不用餐的情况。我们发现，基因检测高等教育（额外一年）与较高的酒精摄入总量显着相关（逆方差加权法 (IVW)：β = 0.44，95% 置信区间 (CI) 0.40-0.49，P = 1.57 E-93)。与饮酒总量和频率的因果关系在女性中更为明显。在分析不同类型的酒精时，更高的教育程度与更多的红酒消费有最强的因果关系（IVW beta = 0.34, 95% CI 0.32-0.36, P = 2.65E-247），其次是白葡萄酒/香槟，以特定性别的方式。啤酒/苹果酒和烈酒之间存在反向关联。此外，我们发现，额外一年的教育程度与更高的饮酒频率（IVW beta = 0.54, 95% CI 0.51-0.57, P = 4.87E-230）和用餐时饮酒的可能性更高（IVW : 优势比 (OR) = 3.10, 95% CI 2.93-3.29, P = 0.00E + 00)。结果表明，高等教育与摄入更多总酒精（尤其是红酒）、更少的啤酒/苹果酒和烈酒、更频繁的饮酒以及随餐饮酒之间存在因果关系，这表明了改善饮酒行为的重要性，