A new study has some surprising results when it comes to why certain people lose their virginity earlier than others, and it may mean having “the talk” with the kids will do no good.

That’s because it’s all in the genes, the paper says according to a University of Cambridge statement.

Genetic makeup appears to be a strong indicator of when people lose their virginity, and it’s not just academic: people who lose their virginity and make babies earlier tend to do not so well in school and have worse overall health.

Scientists have linked puberty to genes before, but study co-author Ken Ong said it wasn’t known whether genes also had anything to do with the timing of a person’s first sexual encounter.

The study examined nearly 400,000 people located in the United Kingdom, United States, and iceland. They found genetic variations linked ot age at first intercourse, as well as genes linked to age at first birth. They compared these to additional data on number of children, age of puberty, and risk-taking tendencies.

“While social and cultural factors are clearly relevant, we show that age at first sexual intercourse is also influenced by genes which act on the timing of childhood physical maturity and by genes which contribute to our natural differences in personality types,” John Perry, a senior investigator scientist at the MRC Epidemiology Unit, and a lead author of the paper, said in the statement. “One example is a genetic variant in CADM2, a gene that controls brain cell connections and brain activity, which we found was associated with a greater likelihood of having a risk-taking personality, and with an earlier age at first sexual intercourse and higher lifetime number of children.”

Added Ong: “We have already shown that early puberty and rapid childhood growth adversely affect disease risks in later life, but we have now shown that the same factors can have a negative effect at a much younger age, including earlier sexual intercourse and poorer education attainment.”