For example, a Japanese study found that between 1979 and 1992, when alcohol consumption became more culturally accepted and social pressure to drink increased, the proportion of Japanese patients who received treatment for alcohol dependence and carried the ALDH2*2 allele increased from 2.5 percent to 13 percent, indicating that the protective effects of ALDH2*2 had declined (Higuchi et al. 1994). The gene discussed is ALDH2; the disease is alcohol dependence.