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23andMe Wins a Second Life, Raises $115M

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21–30 of 118 posts

Re: 23andMe Wins a Second Life, Raises $115M

#22
post #3

I was so excited when 23andMe dropped their prices to $99 a few years ago and immediately gave myself a 'Christmas Present' and bought a 23andMe kit. I seriously thought this was the future. I was so excited to see my health information. It was really cool to see that my spit could confirm that I'm 1/2 asian and 1/2 european. Also, I found it interesting that I have more neanderthal DNA than 99% of people who took th…

If you haven't already, check out http://www.snpedia.com/index.php/SNPedia.

It's kind of cool to cross reference your SNPs to NIH studies.

Re: 23andMe Wins a Second Life, Raises $115M

#23
post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can always export your raw data from 23andMe and plug it into third party (and I guess foreign) services that will give you some health info. Of course you should probably approach the results with some skepticism. I know someone who found out she had a gene that causes an early and very aggressive cancer and now can take pre-emptive measures that quite likely will save her life.

> I know someone who found out she had a gene that causes an early and very aggressive cancer and now can take pre-emptive measures that quite likely will save her life. Do you mind if I ask what service she used for this?

Not sure what the poster above used but I personally was faced with the same issue. I got my raw data from 23me and used https://www.promethease.com/. I think you can do it for free yourself with the desktop version http://www.snpedia.com/index.php/Promethease/Desktop but it takes longer anyway I found some useful information from it but it's to be take with a grain of salt

Re: 23andMe Wins a Second Life, Raises $115M

#24

This would make me anxious. I remember reading about someone who learned from 23andMe that they had a terminal disease or something like that, and it drastically altered their life. I'd rather just live in ignorance.

I've used 23andMe, and it told me I have twice the risk of developing Alzheimer's disease when I'm older. Considering that I've lost a few family members to Alzheimer's, it worries the hell out of me. Regardless, this has triggered me to research a bit about the disease and ways of potentially reducing the risk.

It does make you anxious, but when you have that knowledge, you feel the need to do something about it.

Re: 23andMe Wins a Second Life, Raises $115M

#25
post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

wouldn't you rather make necessary arrangements and preparations for your family w that knowledge? edit: i don't mean this as a criticism, genuine curiosity.

I think it's an incredibly personal decision that you don't really have a place to criticize. I happen to agree with with that post as well, as long as it's not communicable, I'd 100% prefer not to know if I had a disease that was going to kill me. If you're in a position to be responsible for others, shouldn't you already have a safety net/final arrangements? Diseases aren't the only things that can kill you unexpec…

If you're in a position to be responsible for others, shouldn't you already have a safety net/final arrangements?

Yes, you should, but many younger people don't. In your 20's, 30's, even 40's, you feel like death is pretty far off and you can get around to that "boring" stuff later. You may have some basic life insurance, but maybe you haven't really thought about other details. There are also things you might want to handle that aren't necessarily paperwork, such as catching up with family members.

Additionally, if you ARE someone who has that stuff in order (FWIW, I mostly do), you might decide to spend more time volunteering or doing other things. For my own case, I have my retirement pretty much covered. I mostly just work to fund day to day life and continue to contribute to retirement funds. If it turns out I've only got 2 or 3 years (or less!) left to live, I would definitely stop working entirely and spend my time doing other things.

Re: 23andMe Wins a Second Life, Raises $115M

#26
post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The FDA put a stop to crowd-DNA research via the 23AM law suit. Prior to the lawsuit 23AM had a large user base completing questionnaires effectively mapping health risks, traits and allergies to genes. Not sure what the Food and Drug administration has to do with my genes other than regulatory overreach.

This is not correct. They put a stop to 23&Me. There is still plenty of crowd-DNA research going on; for example, my genome and some medical information is online via GCG.

http://www.personalgenomes.org

Re: 23andMe Wins a Second Life, Raises $115M

#27
post #3

I was so excited when 23andMe dropped their prices to $99 a few years ago and immediately gave myself a 'Christmas Present' and bought a 23andMe kit. I seriously thought this was the future. I was so excited to see my health information. It was really cool to see that my spit could confirm that I'm 1/2 asian and 1/2 european. Also, I found it interesting that I have more neanderthal DNA than 99% of people who took th…

I enjoyed my 23&me account in general. The one piece of info that I've found 'useful' was my eyecolor genotype. I have brown eyes and my husband has blue eyes. But I have blue and brown alleles, so before we had kids we were able to intelligently guess about their eye color.

(It wasn't that useful, but we enjoyed it. We now have one child with blue eyes, and one with brown eyes)

Re: 23andMe Wins a Second Life, Raises $115M

#28
post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The FDA put a stop to crowd-DNA research via the 23AM law suit. Prior to the lawsuit 23AM had a large user base completing questionnaires effectively mapping health risks, traits and allergies to genes. Not sure what the Food and Drug administration has to do with my genes other than regulatory overreach.

It has to do with the FDA protecting the public from crappy medical devices and drugs. IF you want to sell a genetic test, you need to prove to the FDA: (1) that your test is accurate and reproducible, (2) that whatever conclusion you draw from the test is scientifically sound. The issue was that 23&Me was saying "you have this SNP, that means your risk of X is increased by Y%". The test, the result and the conclusio…

>It has to do with the FDA protecting the public from crappy medical devices and drugs.

Which devices and drugs were 23&Me selling? I thought it was just crowd-sourced information about traits.

Think how ridiculous it would be if the FDA just shut down a crowd-sourced database about trait correlations. But suddenly when a company like 23&Me correlates the two, it becomes pure, concentrated evil that must be subject to regulation.

Re: 23andMe Wins a Second Life, Raises $115M

#29

This would make me anxious. I remember reading about someone who learned from 23andMe that they had a terminal disease or something like that, and it drastically altered their life. I'd rather just live in ignorance.

23andme user here (one of the first). If the disease in question could be hard to handle mentally/emotionally, they specifically include a warning that is very direct and says "Are you sure you want to know this?".

That's basically telling them with ambiguity attached. I'm not sure it's much better.

Re: 23andMe Wins a Second Life, Raises $115M

#30

This would make me anxious. I remember reading about someone who learned from 23andMe that they had a terminal disease or something like that, and it drastically altered their life. I'd rather just live in ignorance.

I'd be more interested in my doctor having this information. I tend to self diagnose (poorly) when presented with too much information that I don't understand well. But I feel like a medical professional could use the data to keep an eye out for specific symptoms and tailor questions for my risks, without giving me unneeded anxiety.
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