UMOD — small kidney disease and hypertension risk shift
One copy of the UMOD promoter risk allele detected.
You have one copy of a common UMOD gene change linked to slightly higher blood pressure and kidney disease risk.
A small increase in lifetime risk of hypertension and chronic kidney disease. The effect is modest and overshadowed by blood pressure control and metabolic health.
Your lifetime risk of high blood pressure and chronic kidney disease is slightly higher than average. The effect is small, and managing your blood pressure and metabolic health matters far more.
What this means
UMOD encodes uromodulin (Tamm-Horsfall protein), the most abundant protein in urine. The common rs4293393 promoter variant increases UMOD expression and is associated with small but reproducible increases in blood pressure and slow chronic kidney disease progression. Effect sizes are individually small but the locus has been replicated across many studies and ancestry groups.
UMOD makes uromodulin (also called Tamm-Horsfall protein), the protein your kidneys release in larger amounts than any other into urine. The common rs4293393 change is in the "switch" region of the gene and makes your body produce a bit more uromodulin than usual, which is linked to small but reliable bumps in blood pressure and slow chronic kidney disease progression. Each copy has a small effect on its own, but the finding has held up across many large studies and different ancestry groups.
Caveats
- Effect size per allele is small.
- Not currently used in clinical risk stratification.
- Blood pressure control remains the dominant lever.