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From: "Roberta Estes" <>
Subject: [DNA] 23andMe - How Helpful are the Health Traits Really?
Date: Sat, 26 Sep 2009 11:06:24 -0400


I've had some questions about the Health Traits and how useful they really
are. And yes, these are true genetic tests, not some kind of "tea leaf"
thing:)
Some are what I call "conversation traits". These are things like baldness,
eye color, hair color, freckling and alcohol flush reaction. Some are just
"for fun". And as for alcohol flush reaction, you can discover if you flush
(as in turn red, not the toilet) when you drink alcohol for the price of a
beer, but I digress...
However, other types of tests are much, much more important and serious. The
one most sought after is probably the various breast cancer tests. My
sister-in-law had just one test done for the BRCA1 gene at the doctor's
office and it cost her over $1800 plus two office visits. This test is
included in this panel. How can they do that you ask? Well, if you read the
fine print, on the back end, you are asked periodically to opt in and out of
various medical studies. I'm very interested in Parkinsons Disease and want
to participate in any way I can in finding a cure.
Let's talk about Parkinson's disease. First, if you turn up more at risk
than average for something, it doesn't mean you're going to get that
disease, it only means that you need to be more cognizant than you might
otherwise be. It's a kind of medical "heads up". My grandfather "shook", but
he never had any other Parkinson's symptoms. My mother as she aged "shook"
as well, and by process of elimination, the doctor decided she had
Parkinson's. Like my grandfather, she never developed any other symptoms.
The Parkinson's drugs they gave her never had any effect except to make her
sick, but like so many people of her generation, she refused to tell the
doctor because "he wouldn't have prescribed them if he hadn't wanted me to
take them". Bless her heart and God rest her soul, but the woman was
stubborn!
My brother and I never believed she had Parkinson's, we believe she had
something called Familial Tremor, also known as Essential Tremor. There's a
big difference. Parkinson's is a disease that slowly robs one of their
ability to physically function and eventually, their mental ability as well.
It is in the end fatal. Essential tremor is irritating and troublesome in
terms of spilling things, but is no place near the health issue that
Parkinson's is. When I tested, I do not have an elevated risk for
Parkinson's disease which I would have expected if mother and my grandfather
both had it. My brother is shaking a bit already. Recently 23andMe added the
category of Essential Tremor. When I first logged on and saw this, I was
thrilled. Each "trait" or "status" or "disease" has it's own writeup about
it. I verified that this was indeed the disease I thought it was and do you
think I have an increased risk for Essential Tremor????? Surely you know
that I do. Had we had this type of info available when mother was alive, we
could have tested her for $149 and she would never had to live with the
devastation of a misdiagnosis and all of those nasty drugs that made her
sick for the last several years of her life. We could have taken this info
to her doctors. Now, my brother and I don't have to worry (as much) about
whether or not Parkinson's is in our future. We just know we'll likely spill
our coffee so we can use spill-proof travel mugs.
Let's use one other example. One of the traits is "Warfarin sensitivity".
Warfarin is the generic name for blood thinner drugs taken by so many people
to prevent blood clots. Genetic markers determine how you metabolize
Warfarin. Regulating Warfarin is tricky indeed requiring weekly blood draws
until by trial and error the correct dosage is obtained. With this new info
available, you can provide your doctor with the info about how you
metabolize Warfarin, allowing him or her to adjust your dosage more
accurately from the beginning, with less trial and error.
Lastly, let's look at Prostate cancer. One in 6 men develop this disease.
While women can't get it, as they don't have a prostate, they can indeed
pass the propensity for prostate cancer to their children. That doesn't seem
fair does it? Men should be checked regularly, but if you know that you have
an increased risk for the disease, you can start earlier and you can be more
vigilant in order to catch it earlier, if you do develop the disease.
Prostate cancer caught early is very curable.
So in a nutshell, the health traits portion is empowering. It allows you to
be more vigilant and more educated about your own body. It also allows you
to do this privately, without your insurance company having knowledge that
this type of testing was performed, meaning that you can introduce the
results into your medical record only if and when YOU see fit!!! If your
parents can test, it also allows you to "see" where the particular elevation
for a particular health trait came from in your family. This can also be
quite important for your children or in situations where adoptions have
occurred and nothing about the health of the a persons family is known.
You can see a list of these traits and read about them at
https://www.23andme.com/health/.
Roberta Estes

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