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Also, I don't think 23&Me's test results have enough medical value to be used for evaluating health risks. For some things they do, like they test for mutation
by streptomycin 11y ago
Also, I don't think 23&Me's test results have enough medical value to be used for evaluating health risks.
For some things they do, like they test for mutations related to Alzheimer's that can drastically alter risk, ranging from "you're probably never going to get it" to "you're probably going to get it, and there's a good chance it'll be much earlier than you would have imagined".
But their marketing material was vastly overstating the value of their results, which is near 0 for most diseases. And it was misleading people into thinking it was more comprehensive than it really was (like, it's not a full genome, and it doesn't include every SNP that we know matters like most BRCA mutations).
- 2bitencryption 11y agoDo they actually still show the Alzheimer's information? If so, I'd be very interested in doing that...
- streptomycin 11y agoThey don't show any medical information for new customers, but you can analyze it yourself with stuff like https://www.promethease.com/ https://www.promethease.com/
- dekhn 11y agoAll of those diseases that 23&Me reported on have existing single-purpose genetic tests which are far more accurate. I've done full-genome too. The report (first from Illumina, then from another site I uploaded my VCFs) was medically useless: I read all the top risks, then did additional research, and found that the risks they reported were contradicted by other SNPs (for example, they'll say you are at risk for X, but only if you have Y SNPs and Z SNPs, and if you check Y and Z you don't have it). In general, you need a genius/expert to analyze these results right now.