Koreans born to be odorless: research

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Thu, May 25, 2017 | 17:33

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Koreans born to be odorless: research

Posted : 2016-05-20 16:18

Updated : 2016-05-20 16:22

Courtesy of Twitter

By Lee Han-soo

With summer just around the corner, many Koreans are worried about body odor from sweaty armpits.

But it turns out that Koreans are "genetically mutated" to have less of a sweating problem than others, according to research.

The University of Bristol research suggested only 0.006 percent of the Korean population have the ABCC11 gene, a major culprit behind the odor problem. The research was based on the Allel Frequency Database (ALFRED), a gene database designed by Yale University. Researchers said the Korean ratio was the world's lowest.

"The ABCC11 gene is basically the single determinant of whether you do produce underarm odor or not," said Ian Day, a genetic epidemiologist at the University of Bristol who published a paper about the ABCC11 gene on Livescience, a science news website. "The research showed that while only 2 percent of Europeans lacked the smelly gene, most East Asians and almost all Koreans lack this gene."

corea022@ktimes.com