Protein Preference

Your result, the one DNA position behind it, and what the research says.

5/10 confidence.

About Protein Preference

GCKR holds glucokinase, the enzyme that begins glucose processing in the liver, in reserve until it is needed. It is one of the most pleiotropic positions in the genome, turning up in dozens of metabolic measurements, and among them is the proportion of daily energy people take as protein. The breadth of its other associations is a reason to treat this one lightly: a position that touches everything is not specifically about protein.

Good to know: This is about proportions of energy, not about how much protein you need. GCKR touches dozens of metabolic measurements, so nothing here is protein-specific. The measured effect is small.

Fun fact: Glucokinase regulatory protein works by physically holding the enzyme inside the cell nucleus until glucose arrives, which is an unusually direct way to keep an enzyme in reserve.

Discovery: Macronutrient proportions were mapped in genome-wide dietary studies.

The Variant

The single variant behind this trait

Gene: GCKR

Variant (rsID): rs780094

Location: Chr 2:27,518,370

dbSNP rs780094

The studies

Genetic analysis of dietary intake identifies new loci and functional links with metabolic traits (Merino J et al., Nature human behaviour, 2022)

Other lifestyle traits

Bitter Drinks Liking: A change inside a vesicle-trafficking gene, linked to a cluster of liking for the bitter adult drinks: coffee, beer and wine.

Potato Chip Liking: A change in a non-coding stretch of chromosome 5, linked in a very large survey to liking for potato chips.

Savory Food Liking: A change in APOE linked, in a very large food survey, to how much people report liking meat, dairy and rich savory food as a group.

Back to All Traits

Content updated September 2026.

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