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So if I have a higher risk of heart disease than average, the advice will be to eat well and exercise. This is indistinguishable from the current guidelines wit

by Gatsky 9y ago

So if I have a higher risk of heart disease than average, the advice will be to eat well and exercise. This is indistinguishable from the current guidelines without any genetic information. No rational human being should consent to their genetic information being correlated with their IQ. This kind of data is a surefire way to convince otherwise entirely capable people that they should give up on life. It's abhorrent that anyone could conceive of trying to make money out of such a test.

hycaria 9y ago
>This kind of data is a surefire way to convince otherwise entirely capable people that they should give up on life. Life is not binary. I will never be a pro athlete yet I can enjoy doing sports.
- phkahler 9y ago
  >> Life is not binary. I will never be a pro athlete yet I can enjoy doing sports. Sure, but what if someone did a genetic test at this point and told you that your genetics would have made you a world class something-or-other? You missed your calling, how would that make you feel? For others it might help justify a failure and cause them to give up. For a lot of people, life is a journey of discovery and pushing limits. We've seen that telling people they're inherently good at something can make them underachieve due to reduced effort. Giving people preconceived notions of who they are can be as harmful as giving them false hope.
  - hycaria 9y ago
    Probably not the first opportunity I would miss in life, and I guess I would probably have above expected metrics in some other field. There's no reason to overthink it. >For others it might help justify a failure and cause them to give up. / For a lot of people, life is a journey of discovery and pushing limits. Yes, people are different. It would help some, it would bring other down. It's not an obligation so I don't see the harm there.
yorwba 9y ago
It all depends on how things are framed. Your reality is better than the test predicted? You beat the genetic lottery! Go show to those correlations and the whole world what you really have in you. Your reality is worse than the test predicted? You are not making full use of your genetic potential! Work harder on yourself and you could improve tremendously. If only you had known sooner that you were born for greatness. Sure, that's no different than astrology, but lots of people are quite happy about taking advice from astrology. Genetic testing would have the additional advantage of having at least some relation to reality.
prepend 9y ago
Adhering to that basic advice is hard. Most people don’t do it. I’d like to see a study if adherence to diet and exercise improves with genetic predictions. For me, it would help to have a somewhat accurate prediction tied to my Fitbit that shows me right now the benefit of my hour cardio every day. My doctor could look at my physical activity vital signs pulled from wearables during my physical and give me personalized advice “You’re going to die 6 years earlier because of your genes+your diet+your excercise with 20% margin.” Is a lot more effective than “your diet and excercise suck, it will have some unquantified negative impact. But you might be fine, who knows.”
- Ultimatt 9y ago
  You might want to sign up to be interested in our upcoming consumer product then ;D https://www.genetrainer.com/signup/ https://www.genetrainer.com/signup/ But the idea that you have absolute risk/gains from just genetics is a little unreasonable in the world of health rather than disease. For example you might have a predisposition for being incredibly stubborn and single minded (a mental trait) and utterly overcome any slightly weak cards nature dealt you for your physique. I think almost everyone can relate to that concept. We all put effort into our weaknesses most of the time, and then become highly proficient almost in what we are worst at innately! If you were told somehow your IQ is genetically average... so? IQ is a sliding scale constantly normalised as time goes on. Average IQ now is relatively much higher than a hundred years ago. The same is true with sporting achievement we have seen linear improvement in almost every sport since records started. At some point we will reach the limitation of sports science and brush up against genetic hard realities about physical muscle or oxygen transport. But not yet, and not for most people wishing to become fit and healthy. It's a genuine mix of genetics and what you are doing with your life, not some block thats genetic and then lifestyle both influence each other. You can live your life slightly abnormally to maximise your genetics. That function is very complex and personal. To talk of average risk change with genetics is almost to completely go against the whole point of the technology!
  - prepend 9y ago
    Thanks. I signed up for your beta and when check it out when I get an email seems interesting. While I agree that genes aren’t absolute, but 1) sometimes it’s pretty close and 2) it doesn’t need to be absolute if it results in improved rates of behavior change. I’m familiar with a condition with really high penetrance. So while not absolute it’s really high and almost a certainty. If computing could tell me how different risk factors or behaviors could offset or mitigate in understandable terms, that would be useful. I’ve looked at sites and they all seem to reflect pretty blah guidance that isn’t specific enough to be able to model personalized changes. But I expect that to change with all of these large genetic data sets and trials going on. Being fit and healthy would be great for everyone. But 60% of the US isn’t oversight or obese because they are stupid or lazy. It’s just hard and made harder by a very disconnected feedback loop.

by Gatsky 9y ago

hycaria 9y ago

>This kind of data is a surefire way to convince otherwise entirely capable people that they should give up on life. Life is not binary. I will never be a pro athlete yet I can enjoy doing sports.

phkahler 9y ago
>> Life is not binary. I will never be a pro athlete yet I can enjoy doing sports. Sure, but what if someone did a genetic test at this point and told you that your genetics would have made you a world class something-or-other? You missed your calling, how would that make you feel? For others it might help justify a failure and cause them to give up. For a lot of people, life is a journey of discovery and pushing limits. We've seen that telling people they're inherently good at something can make them underachieve due to reduced effort. Giving people preconceived notions of who they are can be as harmful as giving them false hope.
- hycaria 9y ago
  Probably not the first opportunity I would miss in life, and I guess I would probably have above expected metrics in some other field. There's no reason to overthink it. >For others it might help justify a failure and cause them to give up. / For a lot of people, life is a journey of discovery and pushing limits. Yes, people are different. It would help some, it would bring other down. It's not an obligation so I don't see the harm there.

yorwba 9y ago

It all depends on how things are framed. Your reality is better than the test predicted? You beat the genetic lottery! Go show to those correlations and the whole world what you really have in you. Your reality is worse than the test predicted? You are not making full use of your genetic potential! Work harder on yourself and you could improve tremendously. If only you had known sooner that you were born for greatness. Sure, that's no different than astrology, but lots of people are quite happy about taking advice from astrology. Genetic testing would have the additional advantage of having at least some relation to reality.

prepend 9y ago

Adhering to that basic advice is hard. Most people don’t do it. I’d like to see a study if adherence to diet and exercise improves with genetic predictions. For me, it would help to have a somewhat accurate prediction tied to my Fitbit that shows me right now the benefit of my hour cardio every day. My doctor could look at my physical activity vital signs pulled from wearables during my physical and give me personalized advice “You’re going to die 6 years earlier because of your genes+your diet+your excercise with 20% margin.” Is a lot more effective than “your diet and excercise suck, it will have some unquantified negative impact. But you might be fine, who knows.”

Ultimatt 9y ago
You might want to sign up to be interested in our upcoming consumer product then ;D https://www.genetrainer.com/signup/ https://www.genetrainer.com/signup/ But the idea that you have absolute risk/gains from just genetics is a little unreasonable in the world of health rather than disease. For example you might have a predisposition for being incredibly stubborn and single minded (a mental trait) and utterly overcome any slightly weak cards nature dealt you for your physique. I think almost everyone can relate to that concept. We all put effort into our weaknesses most of the time, and then become highly proficient almost in what we are worst at innately! If you were told somehow your IQ is genetically average... so? IQ is a sliding scale constantly normalised as time goes on. Average IQ now is relatively much higher than a hundred years ago. The same is true with sporting achievement we have seen linear improvement in almost every sport since records started. At some point we will reach the limitation of sports science and brush up against genetic hard realities about physical muscle or oxygen transport. But not yet, and not for most people wishing to become fit and healthy. It's a genuine mix of genetics and what you are doing with your life, not some block thats genetic and then lifestyle both influence each other. You can live your life slightly abnormally to maximise your genetics. That function is very complex and personal. To talk of average risk change with genetics is almost to completely go against the whole point of the technology!
- prepend 9y ago
  Thanks. I signed up for your beta and when check it out when I get an email seems interesting. While I agree that genes aren’t absolute, but 1) sometimes it’s pretty close and 2) it doesn’t need to be absolute if it results in improved rates of behavior change. I’m familiar with a condition with really high penetrance. So while not absolute it’s really high and almost a certainty. If computing could tell me how different risk factors or behaviors could offset or mitigate in understandable terms, that would be useful. I’ve looked at sites and they all seem to reflect pretty blah guidance that isn’t specific enough to be able to model personalized changes. But I expect that to change with all of these large genetic data sets and trials going on. Being fit and healthy would be great for everyone. But 60% of the US isn’t oversight or obese because they are stupid or lazy. It’s just hard and made harder by a very disconnected feedback loop.