Water Intake

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

5/10 confidence.

About Water Intake

How much plain water people drink varies enormously and is mostly habit, climate and what else is on offer. When a survey of hundreds of thousands of people asked the question anyway, dozens of positions in the genome came out attached to the answer, and this is one of them. It sits in RYR2, a very large gene that releases calcium inside cells. Why that would touch drinking habits is not established, and the effect is a small fraction of a glass a day.

Good to know: The measured difference is a small fraction of a glass a day. No mechanism has been proposed for why this position would affect drinking habits. Climate, habit and what else you drink matter far more.

Fun fact: Most of the water people take in does not come from drinking water at all - food and other drinks supply a large share of it.

Discovery: Reported water intake was surveyed genome-wide in UK Biobank.

The Variant

The single variant behind this trait

Gene: RYR2

Variant (rsID): rs34967813

Location: Chr 1:237,678,090

dbSNP rs34967813

The studies

Comprehensive genomic analysis of dietary habits in UK Biobank identifies hundreds of genetic associations (Cole JB et al., Nature communications, 2020)

Other lifestyle traits

Spicy Food Liking: A change in a long non-coding RNA region near MEF2C, linked in a very large survey to how much people say they enjoy spicy food.

Breakfast Food Liking: A change near a brain adhesion gene, linked in a very large food survey to liking for typical breakfast foods.

Carbohydrate Preference: A change near a gene controlling how the liver stores glycogen, linked to the share of energy people take as carbohydrate.

Back to All Traits

Content updated September 2026.

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