MILAN – If you prefer tea rather than coffee, it may be due to your genes. Researchers out of the Riken Center for Integrative Medical Sciences (IMS) and Osaka University made the recent discovery after studying 160,000 people’s food preferences.
The research, published in the journal Nature Human Behavior, found genetic links for 13 dietary habits including consumption of alcohol, other beverages and foods, and also complex human diseases such as cancer and diabetes.
“We know that what we eat defines what we are, but we found that what we are also defines what we eat,” said Yukinori Okada, Senior Visiting Scientist at Riken IMS and professor at Osaka University, in a press release.
According to CNN, the researchers used data of more than 160,000 Japanese people from the BioBank Japan Project, launched in 2003 with a goal to provide evidence for the implementation of personalized medicine.
The project collects DNA and clinical information, including items related to participants’ lifestyles such as dietary habits, which were recorded through interviews and questionnaires.
They found nine genetic locations that were associated with consuming coffee, tea, alcohol, yogurt, cheese, natto (fermented soy beans), tofu, fish, vegetables and meat.
Variants responsible for the ability to taste bitter flavors were also observed. This association was found among people who liked to eat tofu; while those without the variant og genes consumed less alcohol or none at all.
Those who ate more fish, natto, tofu and vegetables had a genetic variant that made them more sensitive to umami tastes, best described as savory or “meaty” flavors.
In order to find whether any of these genetic markers associated with food were also linked with disease, the researchers conducted a phenome study.
The phenome comprises all the possible observable traits of DNA, known as phenotypes.
Six of the genetic markers associated with food were also related to at least one disease phenotype, including several types of cancer as well as type 2 diabetes.
