The amount of caffeine that people consume in a day may not depend on the hours of sleep the had a night before. A new research indicates that a person's genetic makeup may determine his or her preferred level of caffeine consumption.
Researchers have been trying to figure out whether caffeine addiction has anything to do with genetics. According to Los Angeles Times, a research conducted in 1962 confirmed that coffee-drinking habits are dependent on heredity. Since then, a number of studies have linked the amount of coffee consumed in a day to a few genes.
However, the latest study published in the journal Scientific Reports suggests that there is a gene variant that controls or limits the amount of caffeine consumed by an individual. The researchers based their conclusion on the study of coffee-drinking behavior of more than 1,200 people in Italy.
The team found that people with gene variant PDSS2 were more likely to drink one less cup of coffee in a day, as compared to those individuals who did not have this genetic variant.
An in-depth analysis further revealed that gene variant PDSS2 affects the ability of the body to break down caffeine into smaller units. As a result, people with PDSS2 need fewer amount of caffeine to feel the jolt that it creates, since caffeine tends to stay in the system for a longer period of time.
To confirm the study findings, the researchers replicated the same parameters among a group of 1,731 individuals from the Netherlands. The team found similar results,however, there was no significant difference in the effect on the number of cups of coffee that people drank.
"The results of our study add to existing research suggesting that our drive to drink coffee may be embedded in our genes," researcher Nicola Piratsu from the University of Edinburgh in Scotland, told the publication.
The team is now planning to confirm whether their findings tally with other large-scale research. However, the researchers are confident that they have found a gene that has never been linked to caffeine consumption in any of the previous studies conducted in the past.
The following video talks about benefits of caffeine: