Science says this is why you hate coffee

If you’ve ever met someone who doesn’t like coffee, or yourself are someone who just isn’t into America’s favorite drink, scientists may have just discovered the reason.

It turns out, while a lot of likes and dislikes come down to a matter of personal taste, preference, and circumstances, recent researcher suggests that whether or not you like coffee might be based in your genes.

According to a study published in the August 2016 issue of Scientific Reports, researchers conducted a genome-wide association study where they aimed to look at markets in people’s DNA, then identify a gene called PDSS2, which may play a role in the way people metabolize caffeine differently. To conduct this study, researchers compared the genes and how much caffeine people drank of two controlled populations: One of about 1,200 people in Italy, and one of about 1,700 people in the Netherlands.

Their findings are pretty legit: Basically researchers discovered that the reason some people “need” to drink less coffee to feel its impact, such as having more energy or feeling more awake, is because their bodies literally break down the caffeine differently on a gene-level.

So, in this case specifically, researchers discovered that study participants with greater expression of the PDSS2 gene reported drinking less. Why? Likely because their bodies metabolized the caffeine more evenly (instead of saying, metabolizing it too quickly and then leaving you “needing” more to function) and therein required them to drink it less.

Of course, this looks at coffee on a really scientific level. For a lot of us, coffee preferences are based more on taste than anything else, especially considering you can get caffeinated beverages that are not coffee, like tea or soda. Still, it’s definitely interesting stuff, and might explain why your cubicle buddy only ever has that one cup of coffee per day. Lucky them, are we right?

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