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What’s the link between this tasty beverage and your DNA?
Coffee is like a modern magic potion, helping us function properly during the day. But only for some of us, as others don’t even feel the need for it. If you ever wondered why does this happen, researchers found an answer: your addiction to the black beverage can be a genetic issue, which means that the answer lies in your DNA.
Scientists at the University of Edinburgh based their study on previous research. For instance, it was a common information that coffee is one of the most popular beverages in the world, only outranked by water and tea. There were also observed some advantages of drinking coffee, such as a better short-term memory, fighting heart diseases, Type 2 diabetes, and even liver cancer.
Scientists started studying the benefits of drinking coffee and how it relates to our DNA more than five decades ago. The recent British study shows that there is a particular gene in the DNA which is in charge of how much coffee a certain person consumes. In other words, this gene limits our coffee consumption.
The authors of the study found that there is a genetic variant, called PDSS2, which is responsible for the amount of caffeine a person is prone to. They observed the behavior and habits of 1, 200 people and noticed that those who drink less coffee have the stated genetic variant.
What PDSS2 does is allow your organism to retain caffeine, so that you don’t need large amounts of coffee to help you get through the day. Only one cup will do for you.
The scientists first did the experiment with 1, 200 Italian people, and then repeated it with 1,731 people from the Netherlands. The results were quite similar. The researchers would like to be able to test people in other countries too, and to compare the results, in order to make sure they reached a reliable outcome.
Doctor Nicola Pirastu was the main author of the study. He made the following statement:
“The results of our study add to existing research suggesting that our drive to drink coffee may be embedded in our genes. We need to do larger studies to confirm the discovery and also to clarify the biological link between PDSS2 and coffee consumption.”
The new article was published in Scientific Reports on August 23.
Image courtesy of: Wikipedia
