Genetics - 23andme question

[Jentrovert]

I just realized that it's November for 23andMe's big sale, right? I had in my head that it is December, but an ad just popped up.

If I want to run genetics for info on which supplements, etc will be useful, which kit do I want? I think I understand correctly that I'll need to run the raw data through another service (promethease?) to get the info I want, but will I get what I need from 23andme with the cheapest kit?

And, those of you who've done this, do you have concerns about how the info may be used in future? You decided that the benefit now is worth it despite those concerns? 

Eta: Hmmm, I see the one from ancestry is cheaper. ?

Edited November 21, 2019 by Jentrovert

[Lecka]

I have a lot of concerns on every level, including if the suggestions for supplements are accurate.  

[maize]

4 hours ago, Jentrovert said:

I just realized that it's November for 23andMe's big sale, right? I had in my head that it is December, but an ad just popped up.

If I want to run genetics for info on which supplements, etc will be useful, which kit do I want? I think I understand correctly that I'll need to run the raw data through another service (promethease?) to get the info I want, but will I get what I need from 23andme with the cheapest kit?

And, those of you who've done this, do you have concerns about how the info may be used in future? You decided that the benefit now is worth it despite those concerns? 

Eta: Hmmm, I see the one from ancestry is cheaper. ?

You want 23andMe's ancestry service--the raw data is the same as for their health service.

The ancestry.com test doesn't have as many health related SNP's. They are great if you are looking for relatives for genealogy purposes though.

I'm more interested in benefits than concerns, but I think there are workarounds if you are super concerned about privacy. Make a new email address just for the test, pay with a prepaid card not tied to your name, register with a pseudonym, and have the kit mailed to a PO box. That way the company has no information that ties your data to you.

 

Edited November 21, 2019 by maize

[Jentrovert]

2 hours ago, Lecka said:

I have a lot of concerns on every level, including if the suggestions for supplements are accurate.  

I didn't realize the service gave suggestions for supplements. I was more thinking to use the info for further research on what would/would not be helpful.

[Jentrovert]

35 minutes ago, Æthelthryth the Texan said:

This thread, and the article in it is worth reading if you want to see how the concerns all come together. 
 

 

That's exactly what I was thinking of. 🙁 

[Jentrovert]

28 minutes ago, maize said:

You want 23andMe's ancestry service--the raw data is the same as for their health service.

The ancestry.com test doesn't have as many health related SNP's. They are great if you are looking for relatives for genealogy purposes though.

I'm more interested in benefits than concerns, but I think there are workarounds if you are super concerned about privacy. Make a new email address just for the test, pay with a prepaid card not tied to your name, register with a pseudonym, and have the kit mailed to a PO box. That way the company has no information that ties your data to you.

 

Thank you! 

If we order, I'm pretty sure we will do all this. 

[Jentrovert]

46 minutes ago, Æthelthryth the Texan said:

This thread, and the article in it is worth reading if you want to see how the concerns all come together. 
 

 

Oh, wait, I just realized I hadn't finished reading all the comments on that thread. Off to finish...

[Lecka]

15 minutes ago, Jentrovert said:

I didn't realize the service gave suggestions for supplements. I was more thinking to use the info for further research on what would/would not be helpful.

 

I am skeptical that when people get results and look at websites or buy reports that say "you have this gene, take or avoid this supplement," that it is ever trustworthy or accurate.  I am not saying I "know" this, I am just skeptical.

 

[Jentrovert]

2 minutes ago, Lecka said:

 

I am skeptical that when people get results and look at websites or buy reports that say "you have this gene, take or avoid this supplement," that it is ever trustworthy or accurate.  I am not saying I "know" this, I am just skeptical.

 

Oh, gotcha. I didn't understand what you were saying. Yes, I agree.

[maize]

17 minutes ago, Lecka said:

 

I am skeptical that when people get results and look at websites or buy reports that say "you have this gene, take or avoid this supplement," that it is ever trustworthy or accurate.  I am not saying I "know" this, I am just skeptical.

 

This is developing science, the interactions between human genetics and epigenetics and environmental factors such as diet are not something we are yet able to parse in detail.

Some information though has proven useful to my family. Learning, for example, that someone has a mutation in a gene that codes for proteins that help recycle vitamin D for re-use means that person may want to pay attention to their vitamin D status and supplement if necessary. Knowing you have a homozygous mutation in a gene that codes for the proteins that convert tryptophan to 5HTP (the molecule that is the precursor for serotonin and melatonin) can suggest a possible route for treating symptoms of serotonin and melatonin deficiency such as anxiety or insomnia--low serotonin is even implicated in impaired hearing and scoliosis, suggesting to me that my family member who exhibits all of these symptoms and carries two copies of the problematic TPH2 allele might well benefit from 5HTP supplementation.

It is still very imperfect science but to me it seems like a significant improvement over the shot-in-the-dark approach that is what doctors and individuals have to rely on otherwise for addressing many symptoms.

Edited November 21, 2019 by maize

[Arcadia]

1 hour ago, Æthelthryth the Texan said:

This thread, and the article in it is worth reading if you want to see how the concerns all come together. 
 

 

 

This is another article to think about. https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/a-father-took-an-at-home-dna-test-his-son-was-falsely-accused-of-murder

“A father took an at-home DNA test. His son was then falsely accused of murder Nov 7, 2019

...

Brandy Jennings:

I uploaded it. And then it takes a few days for it to upload and analyze, and I just kind of forgot about it.

William Brangham:

But, months later, Jennings was shocked to learn that police had used her DNA information from that public Web site, and used a technique called genetic genealogy to identify the killer in a 40-year-old cold case in Iowa.

...

Five years ago, Michael Usry Jr., largely because his father had done DNA testing, ended up in a police station in downtown New Orleans. Police suspected he'd been involved in the brutal 1996 rape and murder of an Idaho woman named Angie Dodge.

Michael Usry Jr., Arrested Due to DNA Test: In fact, almost the entire time they had me in the interrogation room with the one-way mirror and all, they really didn't want to give me any information. I kept asking questions, like, did somebody I know do something horrible?

And, finally, after maybe about an hour or two, they had to just basically go, no, we think that you — you were involved with this crime.

And I'm like, me?

William Brangham:

Usry was targeted because investigators, using an early form of genetic genealogy, linked his father's DNA to DNA from the murder scene.

Usry's dad seemed too old to be the killer, but Michael was not. And then police learned Usry had traveled through Idaho. Plus, he made these grisly, violent low-budget films.

But Usry knew he hadn't done anything wrong.

Michael Usry Jr.:

It was almost like a dream. When it came crashing down was when they walked out of the room and the biggest state policeman that I have ever seen in my life came in with latex gloves and a cotton swab and said, I'm going to take your DNA now.

William Brangham:

It took around a month for police to process Usry's DNA to see if it matched the DNA from the crime scene.

So, you spend three or four weeks thinking, I'm a suspect in a brutal murder.

What were those weeks like for you?

Michael Usry Jr.:

It was scary. It was really scary, those three or four weeks, just because I knew that I had not been involved in any crime.

William Brangham:

When the DNA test results came back, it wasn't a match. Michael Usry Jr. was cleared.

New York University's Erin Murphy, who studies genetics and the law, sees Usry's ordeal as a cautionary tale. She says, remember, Michael Usry never tested his own DNA. He was ensnared because his father had. And Murphy says those decisions, made by others, cannot be undone.

Erin Murphy, New York University School of Law: You can change your phone number if someone starts harassing you. You can change your address if things get really dark. You can do a lot of credit card cancellations if things get into the wrong hands. But you can't cancel your genome. You can't edit your genome.

And, more importantly, the decisions that you make about your genomic privacy can be overridden by anybody, not only in your immediate family tree. It's not just, oh, my brother chooses to do this, but my sixth cousin I never met chose to do this.

That decision essentially erases the genetic privacy of everyone else.

William Brangham:

Curtis Rogers created the biggest public database, called GEDmatch, that's now used by police to solve crimes.

Rogers initially built it so people like Brandy Jennings could use their DNA results to build out their family tree. But after authorities in California used GEDmatch to catch the Golden State Killer, Rogers began to slowly welcome police into the database. And, recently, a Florida judge granted a warrant on one case to let police in even more.

Curtis Rogers, Co-Founder, GEDmatch:

For some reason, people really get upset about serial killers, mass killers and serial rapists being caught. I don't know why this upsets people. But there's some…

William Brangham:

But they're not upset about people getting caught. They're upset about somehow that they are going to be roped into an investigation, they would feel unfairly, or that their privacy would somehow be violated, right?

Curtis Rogers:

If they could see some of the e-mails from these families that have had some closure, I can't imagine that anyone would say it's the wrong thing to do. I can't imagine anyone saying, I don't want to help these families.

Michael Usry Jr.:

Of course I want those people, serial killers and murderers and terrible rapists, to be caught. It's becoming such a powerful crime-fighting tool. It's also kind of — it scares me, personally, because we see that it's being used for other purposes besides finding your uncle.

In my case, it's used by the police to try to link me to a crime.

William Brangham:

Years after Michael Usry Jr. was cleared, further genetic genealogy helped authorities identify the man they believe is Angie Dodge's real killer.

A man named Brian Dripps, who was her neighbor, was charged with rape and murder and will go on trial in 2021.”

[PeterPan]

Fwiw, I made my own decisions about a *few* particular, targeted supplements, most of which I ran labs on as well. Doing the genetics led me to run the labs to know the need. So I'm agreeing that the people trying to sell massive lists of $$$ supplements based on possible situations due to genetics are overblown. That's called $$$ pee. So make sensible choices I guess.

I guess as far as privacy, I don't care. It does sound like they need some laws to catch up with the new issues, but beyond that I'm way too uninteresting to have my genetics matter to anyone. 

And yes, the chips are different so you want 23andme.

Just so you know, what you really should be thinking through, if you are thinking through anything, is how you plan to handle finding out things you didn't want to know. Just saying. You may get notified of sibs or that your parent was not bio. You may find out you are carrying a life-altering gene that will do things you wouldn't really have wanted to know about. You may find out you passed on something to your kids. It's not all pretty, and that's stuff that's actually really likely to happen. Just saying.