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PaperclipPerfector  1yr ago (text post)   3346 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for April 16, 2023

Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?

This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.

Culture war topics are accepted, and proposals for a better intro post are appreciated.

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Spamming this thread today a bit..

Is the health check of 23andme actually useful? Planning to try that out with my girlfriend. Our main interest was the ancestry part but if they say really useful stuff maybe the extra 70 euros is worth it

They test for a number of common SNPs that if present can strongly indicate future health risks. IIRC at one point they weren't allowed to communicate these risks, presumably because of the "unlicensed medical advice" exception written in the First Amendment in invisible ink, but you could still download raw results and decode them yourself.

But they do not test for an even larger number of equally serious mutations. I have one that an oncologist's blood test caught but a 23andMe swab did not, because it wasn't one of the few most common mutated alleles in that gene and those were all the cheap test covered. If you have a family history of anything serious then you might be able to get insurance to pay for a more serious test; if not then I wouldn't worry about it. Only get 23andMe if you're curious about ancestry or about the more light-hearted research they do.

If you want health information, you should talk to a doctor about what kind of genetic testing, if any, is appropriate for you. They will probably not recommend 23andme.

Most of the information provided is less than useless and what isn't is mostly for serious genetic disorders that you should have a pretty good idea about whether they occur in your family already. Things like "you have a slightly elevated risk of late-onset dementia" don't really provide much actionable information.

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