PEMT: do you need more choline than most?
Your body makes some of its own choline. This gene sets how much, and whether your plate has to make up the difference.
Choline keeps your liver, brain, and methylation running, and it's one of the few nutrients you genuinely can't skip. You make a little of it yourself through an enzyme called PEMT. A common variant in that gene, rs7946, throttles back how much you produce, so you have to eat more to land in the same place. In people with this variant, how much choline they get tracks closely with liver-fat risk.
What PEMT does
Make less of your own choline and the rest has to come from food. Eggs and liver are far and away the richest sources, and a supplement like CDP-choline or alpha-GPC fills any remaining gap.
This is genetics actually changing what your body needs, not just nudging a risk number. That makes it one of the cleaner cases where knowing your genotype changes what you put on your plate.
Your variants, decoded
The T allele means you build less phosphatidylcholine on your own, so you need more choline from your diet.
| CC | Normal choline production. |
| CT | Lower production, so you need more choline from food. |
| TT | The lowest production, and where the choline argument is strongest. |
Genotypes are shown order-insensitively and on the forward strand; your own export may print the complementary letters — the meaning is the same.
What the research suggests
Your PEMT rs7946 (V175M) variant means your body builds less phosphatidylcholine on its own, so you need more choline from your diet to keep up. In this genotype, how much choline you get tracks closely with liver-fat risk. A choline supplement, or choline-rich foods like eggs and liver, covers the shortfall.
PubMed 37513629 · PEMT rs7946 modifies choline's effect on hepatic steatosis
Educational only — not medical advice. “General evidence” means the finding is real but the supplement’s benefit isn’t unique to your genotype.
See this matched to your own DNA — free.
Upload your 23andMe or AncestryDNA file and get your actual PEMT result, plus every other actionable variant — each line cited, your file never stored.
Questions
How much choline do I need with a PEMT variant?
More than the standard amount, since you make less of your own. The practical move is to cover it with choline-rich food or a supplement. The exact number is personal, so treat the baseline as a floor, not a target.