Each page covers one condition properly: what it actually is and what it feels like, what causes it, how common it really is and in whom, and how it's diagnosed — followed by the specific variants with a replicated link to it, and, where the research supports it, how genetics can change the way a medicine behaves.
Written in two registers so one page serves both readers: plain language first, then a clinical detail section with the precise terminology, effect sizes and diagnostic thresholds. Every claim is sourced from freely-available published research and cited on the page, so you can check us — or hand the page to your doctor. 385 conditions so far, growing continuously, and free to reuse with attribution (CC BY 4.0).
53 results in Trait
Two GWAS of the sugar chains attached to antibody molecules found the same glycosyltransferase genes twice, plus immune-related loci already linked to autoimmune disease and blood cancers.
Read more → TraitFive separate metabolomics studies used mass spectrometry or NMR to measure hundreds of small molecules in blood and urine, and repeatedly converged on the same handful of metabolism genes.
Read more → TraitA 2017 self-reported GWAS of mosquito bite size and itchiness found 15 immune-related loci — the first genetic look at why some people react to mosquito bites more than others.
Read more → TraitA 2010 study of Filipino women found a variant in CPS1 that raises homocysteine only in females, plus a much stronger MTHFR effect in young adults than in their mothers.
Read more → TraitA 2010 meta-analysis of up to 122,744 people without diabetes found 16 loci shaping fasting glucose as a continuous measurement — related to, but distinct from, the diagnosis of type 2 diabetes.
Read more → TraitHow much people drink is a heritable, continuously measured behavior — five studies between 2011 and 2019 trace the field from a first candidate-gene finding to a 480,842-person meta-analysis, distinct from the clinical diagnosis of alcohol use disorder.
Read more → TraitA 2017 study of over 200,000 people used tonsillectomy history as one of 23 infection-related traits studied together, finding genes in immunity and embryonic development linked to susceptibility.
Read more → TraitTwo 2010 studies found the genetics behind PR interval and QRS duration — two standard ECG measurements of how electricity travels through the heart — sharing sodium-channel genes with each other and with atrial fibrillation risk.
Read more → TraitA 2010 study found central corneal thickness — a highly heritable measurement taken alongside every eye-pressure check — linked to collagen and connective-tissue genes including COL5A1 and ZNF469.
Read more → TraitA 2018 study broke neuroticism apart into its 12 individual questionnaire items and studied each one's genetics separately — "irritable mood" is one of them, and it turns out not to be genetically identical to the rest of neuroticism.
Read more → TraitA 2019 study of 95,380 Japanese men found 46 genetic loci shaping how likely white blood cells are to lose their Y chromosome with age — a common, age-related mosaic change, not something present at birth.
Read more → TraitA 2015 whole-genome sequencing study found variants in SYN2 and PDE8B linked to TSH levels, the pituitary hormone that regulates the thyroid — common variants together explain at least 20% of how much TSH varies between people. Three larger studies since, reaching 482,873 people, raised the count to 74 TSH loci and tied higher TSH to a lower risk of thyroid cancer.
Read more → TraitA 2016 study of 27,581 people over 65 found one variant on chromosome 8 genome-wide-significantly linked to grip strength — a widely used clinical marker of aging and frailty, not a disease itself.
Read more → TraitTwo studies, two methods: a 2018 MTAG analysis found 187 loci by borrowing power from educational-attainment data, and a second 2018 study tested general cognitive function directly in 300,486 people and found 148. Both are population-level statistical results in one ancestry, not an individual test.
Read more → TraitBirth weight is genetically linked to adult heart disease and diabetes risk — and a large study using both mother and child genotypes found that link is carried by shared genes, not by the womb environment itself.
Read more → TraitA life-course study of bone density measured across the whole body, from childhood to old age, found 80 genetic loci — and that all but two of them act the same way no matter how old you are.
Read more → TraitHow big someone’s waist measures is a genetically influenced marker of central body fat, mapped by the same large study that built this site’s hip circumference page — plus two further studies whose loci only show up once smoking or physical activity is accounted for.
Read more → TraitHow fast the heart beats at rest is substantially heritable, and one of the largest studies of it also found a genetically higher resting rate linked to a shorter life expectancy — a real, if modest, mortality signal, not a diagnosis.
Read more → TraitWhen menopause happens is highly heritable, and three studies on two continents keep landing on the same kind of gene: DNA repair. Early menopause, affecting up to 10% of women, turns out to share the same genetic architecture as ordinary variation in timing, not a separate cause.
Read more → TraitA chemokine that helps direct immune cells to sites of inflammation, mapped in a large Finnish cytokine study whose strongest hits sit right in the same signalling family the molecule itself belongs to.
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One diagnosed condition or measurable trait covered properly: what it actually is, what causes it, how common it is, how it is diagnosed, and the specific variants with a replicated link to it — every claim sourced from published research.
No. Every page here is informational, not a diagnosis. A result should be discussed with a doctor or a licensed genetic counselor, never acted on alone.
Because they are not disorders. Height, ABO blood group and a handful of others describe a measurable characteristic with nothing to diagnose — "Trait" says so plainly instead of implying a disease that is not one.
Only after a replicated association in published research, verified against the primary study rather than a gene name or a marketing claim — the same discipline the variant pages themselves follow.