The Real Benefit Of Genetic Testing

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Today’s 30-Second Summary

If you don’t have time to read the whole email today, here are some key takeaways:

• Genetic testing is for far more than finding out that you are descended from Vikings, or are distantly related to the Huguenots.

• Health genomics is the science of what our genes tell us about our health

  • While we share 99.9% of our genes with each other, the remaining 0.1% tell us a lot about not just our health as it is (e.g., known genetic conditions), but also our prospective health risks, according to genetic predisposition, such that we can know where to put extra attention to preventative healthcare and/or lifestyle adjustments.

• Popular genetic testing services will give you some basic information about what your genetic data means for you

  • Open-source collaborative science resources like SNPedia and Promethease can be used to provide a lot more detailed information.

    • This includes, in many cases, which medications simply won’t work for you, or may present other personalized health issues

• If you enjoy the condensed daily dose of digestible health information from 10almonds, you might well like today’s sponsor 1and1, too.

  • This (free!) newsletter's goal is to help you get 1% better weekly and build positive wellness habits that stick. They also cover finances, relationships, and more.

Read on to learn about these things and more…

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Walking | The Science of Self-Care

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Genetic Testing: Health Benefits & Methods

Genetic testing is an oft-derided American pastime, but there’s a lot more to it than finding out about your ancestry!

Health genomics & genetic testing

The basic goal of health genomics and genetic testing is to learn:

• What genetic conditions you have

  • Clearcut genetic conditions, such as Fragile X syndrome, or Huntington’s disease

• What genetic predispositions you have

  • Such as an increased/decreased risk for various kinds of cancer, diabetes, heart conditions, and so forth

• What genetic traits you have

  • These may range from “blue eyes” to “superathlete muscle type”

• More specifically, pharmacogenomic information

  • For example, “fast caffeine metabolizer” or “clopidogrel (Plavix) non-responder” (i.e., that drug simply will not work for you)

Wait, what’s the difference between health genomics and genetic testing?

• Health genomics is the science of how our genes affect our health.

• Genetic testing can be broadly defined as the means of finding out which genes we have.

A quick snippet…

More specifically, a lot of these services look at which single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs, pronounced “snips”) we have. While we share almost all of our DNA with each other (and indeed, with most vertebrates), our polymorphisms are the bits that differ, and are the bits that, genetically speaking, make us different.

So, by looking just at the SNPs, it means we “only” need to look at about 3,000,000 DNA positions, and not our entire genome. For perspective, those 3,000,000 DNA positions make up about 0.1% of our whole genome, so without focusing on SNPs, the task would be 1000x harder.

For example, the kind of information that this sort of testing may give you, includes (to look at some “popular” SNPs):

• rs53576 in the oxytocin receptor influences social behavior and personality

• rs7412 and rs429358 can raise the risk of Alzheimer's disease by more than 10x

• rs6152 can influence baldness

• rs333 resistance to HIV

• rs1800497 in a dopamine receptor may influence the sense of pleasure

• rs1805007 determines red hair and sensitivity to anesthetics

• rs9939609 triggers obesity and type-2 diabetes

• rs662799 prevents weight gain from high fat diets

• rs12255372 linked to type-2 diabetes and breast cancer

• rs1799971 makes alcohol cravings stronger

• rs17822931 determines earwax, sweating and body odor

• rs1333049 coronary heart disease

• rs1051730 and rs3750344 nicotine dependence

• rs4988235 lactose intolerance

(You can learn about these and more than 100,000 other SNPs at SNPedia.com)

I don’t know what SNPs I have, and am disinclined to look them up one by one!

The first step to knowing, is to get your DNA out of your body and into a genetic testing service. This is usually done by saliva or blood sample. This writer got hers done many years ago by 23andMe and was very happy with that service, but there are plenty of other options.

Healthline did an independent review of the most popular companies, so you might like to check out:

Healthline: Best DNA Testing Kits of 2023

Those companies will give you some basic information, such as “6x higher breast cancer risk” or “3x lower age-related macular degeneration risk” etc.

However, to really get bang-for-buck, what you want to do next is:

1. Get your raw genetic data (the companies above should provide it); this will probably look like a big text file full of As, Cs, Gs, and Ts, but it make take another form.

2. Upload it to Promethease. When this writer got hers done , the cost was $2; that price has now gone up to a whopping $12.

3. You will then get a report that will cross-reference your data with everything known about SNPs, and give a supremely comprehensive, readable-to-the-human-eye, explanation of what it all means for you—from much more specific health risk prognostics, to more trivial things like whether you can roll your tongue or smell decomposed asparagus metabolites in urine.

Lastly, on the pros and cons of pharmacogenetic testing specifically:

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📖 ONE-MINUTE BOOK REVIEW

The Vagina Bible: The Vulva and the Vagina: Separating the Myth from the Medicine – by Dr. Jen Gunter

The vagina is mysterious to most men, and honestly, also to a lot of women. School education on this is minimal, if even extant, and as an adult, everyone's expected to "just know" stuff. However, here in reality, that isn't how knowledge works.

To remedy this, gynecologist Dr. Jen Gunter takes 432 pages to give us the low-down and the ins-and-outs of this remarkable organ that affects, and is affected by, a lot of the rest of our health.

(On which note, if you think you already know it, ask yourself: could you write 432 pages about it? If not, you'll probably still learn some things from this book)

Stylistically, this book is more of a textbook in presentation, but the writing is still very much easy-reading. The focus is mostly on anatomy and physiology, though she does give due attention to relevant healthcare options; what's good, what's bad, and what's just plain unnecessary. In such cases, she always has plenty of science to hand; it's never just "one woman's opinion".

If the book has a downside, it's that (based on other reviews) it seems to upset some readers with unwelcome truths, but that's more in the vein of "she's right, of course, but I didn't like reading it".

Bottom line: if you have a vagina, or spend any amount of time in close proximity to one, then this is a great book for you.

Click here to check out The Vagina Bible, and upgrade your knowledge!

May you always get the best knowledge to make the best health decisions for you,

The 10almonds Team