TAS2R38 · Bitter taste perception (PTC/PROP tasting)
Chosen by readers, not researchers. It was opened 27 times this month, more than any of the 46 variants anyone opened at all — while collecting no papers in the same window.
MTHFR · Folate metabolism (MTHFR C677T)
Chosen by reach, not volume. Most papers means one research programme had a good year; this one shares a paper with 10 subjects that have nothing to do with each other — alcohol and the flush, depression and stress, exercise and muscle, longevity and ageing, adhd and attention, sleep and insomnia, running and endurance, gut and food intolerance, skin, sun and hair, risk-taking and impulsivity. 50 papers across them.
Researchers spent 2025 on rs1801133, a spot in MTHFR — 53 papers. Reader counts for this site only start in 2026.
Papers whose title or abstract names this rsID, counted in Europe PMC. Full text was deliberately not counted: it returns every paper with the rsID buried in a supplementary table, which is a mention of a marker, not a paper about a variant.
Nothing counted for 2025 yet.
Page views on this site over the same period, bots excluded. Small, and the only one of the three that is a person choosing to read something.
Nothing counted for 2025 yet.
Requests from named AI crawlers — GPTBot, ClaudeBot, PerplexityBot and others. Nobody else in this field publishes this number, because it can only be counted by whoever owns the logs. Collection began September 2026.
Everything else here starts from a variant. This starts from a word — the kind you type into a search box at 2am — and asks which of our positions turn up in the same papers. A shared paper means somebody wrote about the two together. It does not mean the variant explains the subject, and for most of these the honest answer is that common variants explain very little of it.
The "sprinter gene" is the most oversold result in consumer genetics.
On the 2025 list Strength training went mainstream at the same time as running.
35 of our variants share a paper with this subject.
One of the few places where a single variant is visible in the mirror.
On the 2025 list Drinking less is now a stated identity, not just a decision.
30 of our variants share a paper with this subject.
The supplement industry's favourite word, and what the data supports.
On the 2025 list 'Slow ageing' is a supplement aisle, a subculture and a search term.
16 of our variants share a paper with this subject.
Why some people wake at 5am without an alarm and others cannot.
On the 2025 list Everyone is wearing a sleep tracker and arguing with it.
13 of our variants share a paper with this subject.
The field that taught genetics its hardest lesson about single genes.
On the 2025 list Burnout stopped being a workplace word and became a personal one.
11 of our variants share a paper with this subject.
Diagnoses are rising fast; the genetics is real and highly polygenic.
On the 2025 list Adult diagnoses are rising faster than any other, and so are the questions.
11 of our variants share a paper with this subject.
Bloating, dairy, gluten — the most-searched symptoms with real genetics behind some.
On the 2025 list Gut health is the most-marketed claim in food, with the least labelling.
11 of our variants share a paper with this subject.
The visible traits, which is why they are the ones people look up first.
On the 2025 list Sunscreen and hair loss are where genetics is visible in a mirror.
10 of our variants share a paper with this subject.
Running clubs, first marathons, and a watch telling you your VO2max.
On the 2025 list Running is the trend of the year, and it comes with a screen full of numbers people now want explained.
9 of our variants share a paper with this subject.
How hard quitting is turns out to be partly a metabolic question.
On the 2025 list Vaping made quitting a live question again for a generation that never smoked.
9 of our variants share a paper with this subject.
Trading, betting, and every "should I?" at 2am. There is real genetics here — and it explains far less than the headlines say.
On the 2025 list Crypto, prediction markets and day trading made 'impulse' a word people apply to themselves.
6 of our variants share a paper with this subject.
GLP-1 drugs made obesity genetics a dinner-table subject.
On the 2025 list GLP-1 drugs went from clinic to conversation in two years.
The most-consumed drug on earth, metabolised at wildly different speeds.
On the 2025 list Energy drinks are the fastest-growing thing people put in their bodies.
Search-engine volume. There is no free, official API that reports how often a term is searched, rsIDs sit far below the threshold at which the unofficial ones return anything stable, and a number nobody can reproduce is worse than a gap that is labelled. If that changes, it will appear here as its own board rather than being folded into one of these.
A monthly report from MyGeneLog on which genetic variants the world is paying attention to, counted three separate ways: papers in Europe PMC whose title or abstract names the rsID, page views on mygenelog.com, and fetches by named AI assistants such as GPTBot, ClaudeBot and PerplexityBot. The three are published side by side and never combined into one score, because they answer different questions and disagree in ways that are the finding.
By reach across subjects, not by paper count. The winner is the variant that shares a published paper with the largest number of different topics — sleep, alcohol, exercise, risk-taking and so on. A variant with many papers on one subject is a single research programme having a good year; a variant that keeps surfacing in conversations that have nothing to do with each other is a different fact. Ties break on total paper count, then on rsID, so everyone loading the page gets the same answer.
Paper counts come from the Europe PMC REST API, restricted to title and abstract. Full text was rejected on evidence: it returns every paper with an rsID buried in a supplementary table, runs four to eight times higher, and ranks methods papers above the studies people actually cite. Reader views and AI-assistant fetches are MyGeneLog's own server logs, with bots excluded from the reader figure by design.
Because there is no free, official API that reports it, and rsIDs sit far below the threshold at which the unofficial tools return anything stable. A number nobody can reproduce is worse than a gap that is labelled, so the gap is labelled. If an official source becomes available it will appear as its own board rather than being folded into an existing one.
Only that Europe PMC returns at least one paper whose title or abstract names both the topic and that rsID. It is a co-mention, not a causal claim: it means researchers wrote about the two together. It does not mean the variant explains the topic, and for most of these subjects the honest finding is that common variants account for a very small share of the difference between people.
Yes, and that is why they are published. Attribution is required: name MyGeneLog and link to the page you took the figure from, so a reader can check the count instead of taking it on trust. Cite the date you read it — every figure is recounted monthly and will move.
The whole report is recounted on the first of each month, covering both the month that just closed and the running year total. The word-to-variant map is cumulative rather than per-period and is refreshed in the same run.
Because researchers and readers are answering different questions. Research effort follows what shortens lives; reader attention follows what a person can taste, swallow or check the same evening. The variants that appear on both lists are worth a second look precisely because that agreement is rare.
These figures are free to quote, republish and build on — that is why they are published. Attribution is required: name MyGeneLog and link to this page, so a reader can check the count rather than take it on trust. Paper counts come from Europe PMC; reader and AI-assistant counts are this site's own logs. Both are recounted monthly, so cite the date you read it.
State of the Genome 2025. MyGeneLog™. https://www.mygenelog.com/trending/2025