Overrated “precision medicine” can only serve self-interest, and consumer DNA testing can be useless or even worse.
Today, you can get Sequencing your DNA—the letters of your entire genetic code written down—costs about a thousand dollars, compared to $100 million 20 years ago. And for about a hundred dollars, you can get a partial DNA sequence. Direct-to-consumer genetic testing is “just a click away,” like 23andMe, for “ancestry, health, love … and more.” Unfortunately, many of the tests available today have not been properly validated. And, as a result, the buyer can buy something that is “ultimately useless”. Or, the results can be just that to be just wrong.
Public demand for direct-to-consumer genetic tests is growing, but when tested, researchers found a “high false positive rate.” Test results showed that people have a high-risk gene, but this was not true. And it happened 40% of the time, especially with the BRCA breast cancer gene (the one Angelina Jolie publicly revealed she has), which you can see below and at 1:08 in my video. Should you get a personalized genetic risk test?.
In addition to the 40% false positive rate, some variants that the tests correctly identified were classified as high risk when in fact they were not high risk. You can see how it’s in the best interest of these companies to give terrible results, so customers think the money spent was worth it and maybe even pay for an extra test. However, false positive results and variant misclassification can have serious consequences for the individual, including unnecessary stress and even unnecessary medical procedures. What if you had a double prophylactic mastectomy because you falsely thought you were high risk because you didn’t even have a BRCA mutation?
Yes, now, these are genome-wide association studies was determined thousands of common genetic variants that affect the risk of complex diseases, as I discussed in my video on personalized nutrition. “However, the gene variants discovered do not significantly expand our predictive ability compared to what can be obtained using information from traditional risk factors alone.”
Take type 2 diabetes for example. Researchers have was determined about 50 genes associated with an increased risk of diabetes, but even when is considered Overall, “obese individuals with the lowest genetic risk of diabetes are about 5 times more likely to develop diabetes than normal weight individuals with the highest genetic risk.” In other words, it sends the wrong message to the person who is fat and gives them a false sense of security. Information on genetic susceptibility to type 2 diabetes based on what we know so far has “No effect on decision-making about who should be targeted for intensive lifestyle intervention.” Anyone with excess body fat, regardless of genetics, should lose weight to reduce their risk of diabetes.
What about popular learning? it is said To demonstrate that personalized dietary interventions can improve blood sugar responses, some commentators said It raised questions about the usefulness of universal dietary recommendations? But if you actually read the research, the results are not to show high inter-individual variability in relative blood sugar responses; do not demonstrate that the model is superior to existing methods for detecting high blood sugar; and do not show that individualized nutritional advice is better than standard dietary advice for managing high postprandial sugar responses.
But how about personalized genetic risk counseling at least? to encourage prevent diabetes? “In a somewhat forlorn proposal regain reliability, “knowledge” of an individual’s genetic risk profile has been viewed as effective in motivating positive individuals to pursue disease prevention efforts…”. But, again, the available evidence does not support this claim. And indeed, it did not. it seems to help those with diabetes.
Researchers accidental people can get genetic tests costing hundreds or thousands of dollars to determine their subtle differences in risk for up to 40 different diseases. In this case, it was Navigenic described Its goal is to empower people with personal genetic insights to motivate them to improve their health. However, it did not work There was no measurable change in diet or lifestyle, even in the short term.
Randomization People are more likely to benefit from personalized nutritional information like determining who is genetically better off eating more carrots or eating cholesterol to lower their cholesterol, but when researchers put it to the test, there was no significant change in diet at six months compared to those who didn’t receive this personalized information, or even at month three. So, not surprisingly, there were no differences in weight, belly fat, cholesterol, or any other biomarkers.
Put up all the research together and what do we find? There is little point in telling smokers that they are at risk of lung cancer, or that they should eat especially healthily, or that they should be more physically active. Conclusions: Expectations that awareness of DNA-based risk assessment will change behavior are not supported by the available evidence. Despite that was The reason cited for the president’s big push for precision medicine in 2015: empowering individuals to take a more active role in their own health.
It is not surprisingly, the topic of personal empowerment comes up. It’s great for marketing, but it’s not particularly empowering. In fact, if anything, it is leaf patients rely even more on authority and that is it’s not even that personal because the genetic contribution we know is so small compared to how we actually live our lives. So why is the power of patience emphasized as a “primary virtue”? Because “he uses the appeal to create political and public support” for “the increasingly industrialized medical-industrial and scientific complex.” moves trillions of dollars worldwide.”
It’s not a grand conspiracy theory; it’s just the way the system works. “Healthy life directly threatens many powerful corporations…. “Eat less sugar? Eat less meat? After all, a healthy population only reduces the demand for doctors and drugs. “Apparently willfully blind to these facts, the United States to be continued to spend more of their health dollars on clinical care.” It’s no wonder, then, that we spend far more than other countries and yet have worse outcomes. While new taxpayer dollars were promised to high-tech medicine nearly a decade ago, the United States was already ranked low among countries with respect to disease. Promises of “precision medicine” can be service vested interests, … justifying the exorbitant costs of health care in our financially driven medicine. In many ways, the US health care system is is the most advanced in the world, but all our “virtual technology just can’t fix what ails us.” “Come on start with the basics. Eat your broccoli, take your stairs, and don’t worry about whether you have a 5.6 percent or 7.7 percent risk of serious disease, because either way, a smart lifestyle is the healthiest choice.”
Dr.’s comment
The video I mentioned Friday’s Favorite: How Useful Is Personalized Nutrition?.
