NEW GENETIC VARIANTS ASSOCIATED WITH COFFEE DRINKING
A new, large-scale
study has identified six new genetic variants associated with habitual coffee
drinking. The genome-wide meta-analysis, led by Harvard School of Public Health
and Brigham and Women's Hospital researchers, helps explain why a given amount
of coffee or caffeine has different effects on different people and provides a
genetic basis for future research exploring the links between coffee and health.
Coffee and caffeine
have been linked to beneficial and adverse health effects. Our findings may
allow us to identify subgroups of people most likely to benefit from increasing
or decreasing coffee consumption for optimal health," said Marilyn Cornelis,
research associate in the Department of Nutrition at Harvard School of Public
Health and lead author of the study.
The study appears
online October 7, 2014 in Molecular Psychiatry.
Genetics have long
been suspected of contributing to individual differences in response to coffee
and caffeine. However, pinpointing the specific genetic variants has been
challenging.
The researchers, part
of the Coffee and Caffeine Genetics Consortium, conducted a genome-wide
meta-analysis of more than 120,000 regular coffee drinkers of European and
African American ancestry. They identified two variants that mapped to genes
involved in caffeine metabolism, POR and ABCG2 (two others, AHR and CYP1A2 had been
identified previously). Two variants were identified near genes BDNF and SLC6A4
that potentially influence the rewarding effects of caffeine. Two others --
near GCKR and MLXIPL, genes involved in glucose and lipid metabolism -- had not
previously been linked to the metabolism or neurological effects of coffee.
The findings suggest
that people naturally modulate their coffee intake to experience the optimal
effects exerted by caffeine and that the strongest genetic factors linked to
increased coffee intake likely work by directly increasing caffeine metabolism.
"The new
candidate genes are not the ones we have focused on in the past, so this is an
important step forward in coffee research," said Cornelis.
"Like previous
genetic analyses of smoking and alcohol consumption, this research serves as an
example of how genetics can influence some types of habitual behavior,"
said Daniel Chasman, associate professor at Brigham and Women's Hospital and
the study's senior author.
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