Abstract

Objectives : This study was designed to investigate the differences of effects in smoking cessation after acupuncture treatment and we hypothesized that the discrepancies might be caused by individual genetic differences. Methods : Acupuncture treatment was given to the subjects three times a week for the 231 healthy male Korean smokers without personal or familial history of psychiatric or neurological illness. We evaluated for differentiate responder and non-responder who showed more than 50% decrease in the cigarette consumption or the desire for smoking were regarded as responder, and less than 25% decrease in the cigarette consumption or the desire for smoking were regarded as non-responder, respectively. Allele and genotype frequencies of the Taq1 A polymorphism of dopamine D2 receptor (DRD2) gene were compared in 231male smokers. Chai-square analyses were performed to test for an interactive effect between the DRD2 Taq1 A allele. Results : The allele frequencies and genotype distributions of DRD2 gene among the smokers (n = 231) showed significant the differences in their genotype distributions. The responder and non-responder showed the difference in genotype distribution with a prevalence of A1 allele. A slightly positive association of DRD2 Taq1 A1 genotypes with smoking was observed. Conclusions : This experiment results indicate that the present of DRD2 allele genotype showing significant difference in the genotype distributions between responders and non-responders could be explained by the difference in the genetic effect of DRD2 A1 allele.

Keywords

• Smoking cessation;
• Auricular acupuncture;
• Dopamine D2 receptor;
• Genetic polymorphism;
• Responder