Telomere Length

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

4/10 confidence.

About Telomere Length

Every chromosome ends in a repeated sequence called a telomere, which acts like the plastic tip on a shoelace and stops the end fraying or being mistaken for a break. Telomeres shorten a little each time a cell divides, and their length is one of the more studied markers of cellular aging. This position sits near a gene involved in telomere maintenance and is associated with measured telomere length in blood cells. Measured length varies enormously between people of the same age, and inheritance is only part of it.

Good to know: Telomeres cap chromosome ends and shorten as cells divide. Measured length varies widely between people of the same age. It is a research measure, not a personal health readout.

Fun fact: The enzyme that rebuilds telomeres was discovered in pond scum, a single-celled organism whose chromosome ends are unusually easy to study.

Discovery: Variants near this gene were linked to measured leukocyte telomere length in large population studies from 2013.

The Variant

The single variant behind this trait

Gene: MYNN

Variant (rsID): rs10936599

Location: Chr 3:169,774,313

dbSNP rs10936599

The studies

Replication of the results of genome-wide and candidate gene association studies on telomere length in a Korean population (Do SK et al., The Korean journal of internal medicine, 2015)

Association between common telomere length genetic variants and telomere length in an African population and impacts of HIV and TB (Wang S et al., Journal of human genetics, 2019)

TERC Variants Associated with Short Leukocyte Telomeres: Implication of Higher Early Life Leukocyte Telomere Attrition as Assessed by the Blood-and-Muscle Model (Toupance S et al., Cells, 2020)

Other lifestyle traits

Longevity Variant: A variant in FOXO3, one of the very few genes linked to living past 95 in study after study, across populations that share almost nothing else.

Mitochondrial Antioxidant: A change that alters how well the main mitochondrial antioxidant enzyme is imported into mitochondria, where the work actually happens.

Selenium Enzyme Activity: A change in glutathione peroxidase 1, a selenium-containing enzyme that neutralises hydrogen peroxide inside cells.

Back to All Traits

Content updated September 2026.

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