Markers / Gene
UCP1
One position in this gene is readable from a home DNA test.
Brown fat, the tissue that burns calories as heat
rs1800592 · chr4:141,493,961 · T/C · evidence: moderate
Brown fat does something unique: it uncouples the process that normally makes energy and releases the result as heat instead. It is how a baby stays warm, it is far more active in people who spend time in the cold, and UCP1 is the protein that does the uncoupling.
| If you carry | What it means |
|---|---|
| No copies | You have the higher-activity version on both copies |
| One copy | You carry one lower-activity copy |
| Two copies | You have the lower-activity version on both copies |
| Ancestry group | C (the effect version) | |
|---|---|---|
| African | 73.4% | |
| American | 40.6% | |
| East Asian | 46.5% | |
| European | 23.7% | |
| South Asian | 39.4% |
1000 Genomes Project phase 3, via Ensembl, retrieved 2026-09-23. These groupings are coarse and flatten a great deal of internal diversity, particularly within Africa. A variant being common somewhere tells you where a piece of your ancestry probably comes from, and nothing else.
Where this gene fits
If you have taken a home DNA test, these positions are already in your file.
Read my file