DNA mystery: the asparagus smell
Everyone who eats asparagus produces the same smell compounds in urine — but not everyone can smell them. Guess how many actually can.
What share of people can smell the characteristic odor after eating asparagus?
A smaller share — many lack the experience entirely.
The marker rs4481887 is linked in large studies to whether you can detect the characteristic asparagus smell in urine at all. Those who cannot smell it are not missing the smell — they are missing the receptor.
One of the best-known everyday genetics associations — harmless, unexplained and surprisingly common as a difference.
Marker: the smell-receptor region near OR2M7/related receptors — rs4481887. Look it up, or check your own variant against your raw data file — locally in the browser, no upload.