You Can Blame Your Coffee Habits On Your Parents, Study Suggests

Your need for an extra cup of coffee in the morning may be genetic.

A team of European scientists has discovered a gene, called PDSS2, that controls how well your body can metabolize caffeine, according to a paper published in the journal Nature on Thursday. The gene can allow caffeine into your bloodstream quickly and allow it to linger there for a fair amount of time, providing that coffee buzz even as you're still finishing cup No. 1.

Depending on the makeup of that gene, it can also slow the amount of caffeine it allows into your bloodstream. Thus, the, "I haven't had enough coffee yet" excuse.

"Our results highlight a novel gene which regulates coffee consumption by regulating the expression of the genes linked to caffeine metabolism," the study's abstract reads. "Further studies will be needed to clarify the biological mechanism which links PDSS2 and coffee consumption."

And since it's genetic — yes, you can blame your coffee addiction on your parents.

"It has been estimated that genes explain about 50 percent of variation in coffee consumption so we definitely owe this to our parents," Nicola Pirastu, a genetics researcher at Edinburgh University and the lead author of the study, told Patch. "Of course they are also responsible to what we are exposed to so that makes twice the blame."

So how did the study work?

The researchers surveyed two groups of people in Italy and asked them about their coffee-drinking habits. People with a specific variant of the PDSS2 gene tended to drink less coffee than the groups that didn't.

The researchers found a similar but weaker trend in a group of people in the Netherlands, though they said that may be due to the Dutch drinking a stronger kind of coffee.

You can read the study here.

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