23 and Me

[Clodfobble]

Anyone else done one of these genome-sequencing services? They've been having a big price special recently ($99 per person instead of the $400ish they were charging several years ago,) and I was intrigued by some of the information they provide, so we decided to go ahead and do it for everyone in our immediate family.

Some stuff is very interesting and relatively important, like it turns out Mr. Clod and some of our kids are carriers for PKU. No concern for us, but someday it might be a good idea for our kids' potential mates to get screened.

Some stuff is more immediately important, like both Mr. Clod and I have genes that make us very sensitive to certain drugs, and completely unaffected by others. None of them are drugs we need to take in the immediate future, but if one of us is having heart problems someday, it could make a difference for us to choose the right drug right off the bat instead of guessing.

Some stuff is just dumb, like everyone in the house has the genes that make us poor metabolizers of asparagus, so it makes our pee stink. I could have told you that already, but it's still kind of interesting to know that they've pinpointed that particular gene.

Of course, the majority of it is risk factors instead of yes/no conditions. Atrial fibrillation is affected by at least 4 genes, and I have some that give me a higher risk, and some that give me a lower risk. And there are some key conditions they don't report on, sometimes because there aren't enough studies supporting a connection yet, but usually because the connection has only recently been discovered and the test for the gene is patented. (That's how the court rulings have generally fallen out, by the way: they can't patent the gene, but they can patent the knowledge of what that gene means for you.) On the other hand, you get all the raw data, and there are other services which will less-officially interpret certain data for a nominal fee.

Aside from health information, the other half of the service is ancestry information. I find that part to be pretty boring, though I guess it would be kind of cool to find out I had a lost sibling I didn't know about, or if any dwellars were distantly related. Of course they'd have to have used the genome service themselves, too, so it's pretty unlikely. The closest relative either of us has on there are a bunch of people estimated to be somewhere between 3rd and 6th cousins. We've chosen to remain anonymous; the last thing I want are a bunch of genealogists emailing me for family tree information.

The thing I found most amusing is how many times they warn you about how you may learn things about yourself that you didn't actually want to know, most often in cases of paternity. And of course lots of people simply don't want to know if they have a high risk of Alzheimer's, or whatever, though for me I think more information is always better. Even after you get your results, you have to go through extra clicks to officially agree that you want to unlock certain high-stress information, like whether you have the BRCA1 or BRCA2 genes.

Anyway. I love data, especially medical data. I'm glad we did it.