Lots of excitement today on checking to see if my sample has been processed, the results are ready.
You can see I checked the “please load my health data”, I guess 23andMe want to make sure you really really do want to find things out about yourself efore letting you dive into the results.
The next step is to enter my data; year of birth (40 years ago last Tuesday), sex (with an “I’m not sure” option!), height, weight and smoking status. I answered no to all the medical questions (lucky me), except I am a Psoriatic so to finish off I added that I am using Dovonex cream for my Psoriasis.
Health and disease status: My first result is my blood group status, 23adnMe correctly identify me as having an O blood group. I also find out which snps are used to determine this and the reference for the paper. Interesting stuff for a scientist like me.
Immediately available is my health status report. This shows 114 disease, 52 trait, 27 carrier status and 20 drug response reports.
3 of these are locked. The locked reports describe the trait or disease eing reported and exp,lain the genetic susceptibility BEFORE you chose to reveal results. It certainly felt that the website is designed to guide an informed choice, even if you are missing a face-to-face discussion with a genetic counselor. I looked at my ApoE status and see I have twice the risk of the general population. Certainly not a ‘nice’ result but not likely to make me lose any sleep.
The first 23andMe discovery I read about was curly hair. According to the analysis I should have slightly curlier hair than the average European. Mine is dead straight and was so even when I was a head-banging teen rocker. My brother has slightly curly hair and my dad was curly (all shaved off now).
I am not a carrier for 24 of the diseases reported. I am a haemochromotosis carrier and not ready to look at BRCA status yet.
The most useful result for me personally is an increased risk of Glaucoma. This had been mentioned at my last opticians visit and I had brushed it off a it. Seeing a genetic risk as well makes me think I will speak to the optician a bit more at my next appointment and monitor this closely. I’ll also start to look at what I can do and what treatments are available for this condition.
Traits and inheritance: As for traits I was happy to see I am a likely sprinter (CRUK half marathon in March next year). I was a little disappointed to find out I am likely to have a typical IQ. It shows what ard work I must have put in to get where I am today and also says to me my kids won’t be able to get away with not doing their homework.
There are no closely related individuals on 23andME, yet. I am 74.24% identical to Neil Hadfield (also on 23andME) however I am 71.19% similar to a Chinese person and 68.49% similar to an African. Neil is probably not my long lost brother.
Impressions so far: I will spend a few days looking through this but so far it has persuaded me my £160 birthday present was worth it. It certainly satisfies my curiosity. For now I will leave BRCA status as there are some family things that need to be discussed efofre diving into that one.
It blows my mind that more people aren't interested in gene sequencing for their own personal benefit. It seems that on an individual basis one could see the benefit, ignoring the massive ramifications for health, medicine, and pharmacology for a second…
Good for you, for taking such an interest in this wonderful tech breakthroough. Thoroughly enjoyed reading about your experience, lets hope that the FDA doesn't continue to hamper pharmacogenetics and related advances..