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Ask HN: What did you find in your DNA using 23andme?

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Re: Ask HN: What did you find in your DNA using 23andme?

#51

Post by vbuwivbiu »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #12
23AndAllOfYou wrote: post #7

My spouse did it and the results provided by 23andMe were next to useless. It told her interesting facts like that she likely has no dimples (she has them), and other meaningless crap. However, she downloaded the raw data and ran it through Promethease[0] and it did supply some useful info about potential drug interactions, which has been useful. She supplied a fake name to them, used a gift card to pay for it online…

You violate the terms of their service when you use a fake name. If you don't want to use your real information, pay $1000 for a full sequencing. Their rates are lower because they're able to subsidize consumers with selling aggregate information to drug companies for rapid drug prototyping and development. EDIT: I am astounded by the entitlement complex exhibited in the replies to this. You don't have to agree to th…

nobody cares - they're not entitled to use your data the way they do

Re: Ask HN: What did you find in your DNA using 23andme?

#52

Post by occamschainsaw »

docbrown wrote: post #33
occamschainsaw wrote: post #16

I am a South Asian. It told me I was of South Asian ancestry. Was hoping for something more specific than that. I love me some coffee (drink more than 3 cups a day), and it said I am very likely to consume less caffeine. It also told me I have a high chance of having smooth hair, but I have extremely curly hair. And I am extremely skeptical of their traits in general. Some of the traits include: "cilantro taste avers…

Your comment made me go back to articles on data sharing 23andme does with companies. At first I read your statement about cilantro but it seems these are just the type of questions companies are paying big money for. >For now, though, 23andMe’s biobank is the world’s largest repository of DNA samples that also contains extensive health information, willingly provided by customers who answer survey questions like “Do…

That article was pretty helpful. Now I am entering the rabbit hole of reading about 23andme data sharing.

What strikes me as interesting is their current business model: customers are paying them and answering their survey questions. That is quite brilliant, they get specifics about the people in their existing dataset, and once a critical statistical mass has been reached, they can find correlations between traits and genomic data.

I would be happy to voluntarily provide my time, effort and data towards medical research. While I don't have ethical problems right now (I don't expect a lot of privacy anyways), there is a small nagging fear that these things could bite me 20 years down the line when these genomic tests are much more sophisticated and I have already given them my genome. Small benign hypothetical example: I start seeing ads about cilantro on Facebook.

That fear was overpowered by my curiosity to learn about my genome. That's on me.

Re: Ask HN: What did you find in your DNA using 23andme?

#53

Post by [deleted] »

vbuwivbiu wrote: post #51
toomuchtodo wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You violate the terms of their service when you use a fake name. If you don't want to use your real information, pay $1000 for a full sequencing. Their rates are lower because they're able to subsidize consumers with selling aggregate information to drug companies for rapid drug prototyping and development. EDIT: I am astounded by the entitlement complex exhibited in the replies to this. You don't have to agree to th…

nobody cares - they're not entitled to use your data the way they do

[deleted]

Re: Ask HN: What did you find in your DNA using 23andme?

#54

Post by afturner »

RivieraKid wrote: post #10
danielfoster wrote: post #9

I highly recommend uploading your 23andme data to Promethease, which dramatically increases the amount of research matched to your genome and provides a better interface: https://promethease.com/ I discovered that I have one copy of the Delta 32 mutation. Two copies provides nearly complete immunity to AIDs, but being lucky enough to have just one copy means that it will take significantly longer to get AIDS should I…

Promethease has a really bad and confusing interface in my opinion... 23andme is much better designed.

when did you last use it? I found it to be quite usable imho a few weeks ago

Re: Ask HN: What did you find in your DNA using 23andme?

#55

Post by asianthrowaway »

larrywright wrote: post #29

One thing was in there that was unexpected: I’m 3% Ashkenazi Jewish. I’ve never heard that from any relatives, and some have done extensive genealogy. Additionally, something was missing that I expected to see: Native American ancestry. My family on my dad’s side had always talked about our Native American ancestry - only a few generations back from my grandmother - but the DNA showed absolutely none. I’ve since lear…

> so I’m at a loss to explain why so many of my relatives thought they were descended from a Native American.

Because it's cool

Re: Ask HN: What did you find in your DNA using 23andme?

#56

Post by acct1771 »

larrywright wrote: post #29

One thing was in there that was unexpected: I’m 3% Ashkenazi Jewish. I’ve never heard that from any relatives, and some have done extensive genealogy. Additionally, something was missing that I expected to see: Native American ancestry. My family on my dad’s side had always talked about our Native American ancestry - only a few generations back from my grandmother - but the DNA showed absolutely none. I’ve since lear…

I've seen anonymous "confessions" (who knows, take this with a grain of salt, just messenger, etc) that the employees will sometimes throw in odd results like that just to throw off/troll otherwise white Europeans.

Re: Ask HN: What did you find in your DNA using 23andme?

#57

Post by sdinsn »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #12
23AndAllOfYou wrote: post #7

My spouse did it and the results provided by 23andMe were next to useless. It told her interesting facts like that she likely has no dimples (she has them), and other meaningless crap. However, she downloaded the raw data and ran it through Promethease[0] and it did supply some useful info about potential drug interactions, which has been useful. She supplied a fake name to them, used a gift card to pay for it online…

You violate the terms of their service when you use a fake name. If you don't want to use your real information, pay $1000 for a full sequencing. Their rates are lower because they're able to subsidize consumers with selling aggregate information to drug companies for rapid drug prototyping and development. EDIT: I am astounded by the entitlement complex exhibited in the replies to this. You don't have to agree to th…

> Especially don't be infuriated that they're not holding up their end of the bargain

That's not how the law works.

Re: Ask HN: What did you find in your DNA using 23andme?

#59

Post by Balgair »

acct1771 wrote: post #56
larrywright wrote: post #29

One thing was in there that was unexpected: I’m 3% Ashkenazi Jewish. I’ve never heard that from any relatives, and some have done extensive genealogy. Additionally, something was missing that I expected to see: Native American ancestry. My family on my dad’s side had always talked about our Native American ancestry - only a few generations back from my grandmother - but the DNA showed absolutely none. I’ve since lear…

I've seen anonymous "confessions" (who knows, take this with a grain of salt, just messenger, etc) that the employees will sometimes throw in odd results like that just to throw off/troll otherwise white Europeans.

Holy Hell, if true, that is incredibly unethical. Lying to people about something as personal as family crosses so so many lines.

Re: Ask HN: What did you find in your DNA using 23andme?

#60

Post by elektor »

searine wrote: post #43
danielfoster wrote: post #9

I highly recommend uploading your 23andme data to Promethease, which dramatically increases the amount of research matched to your genome and provides a better interface: https://promethease.com/ I discovered that I have one copy of the Delta 32 mutation. Two copies provides nearly complete immunity to AIDs, but being lucky enough to have just one copy means that it will take significantly longer to get AIDS should I…

Word of warning. Take promethease with a grain of salt. For example, promethease predicted a deletion in my genome (didn't actually observe a call, just inferred the deletion from linked sites) for a highly pathogenic disease in my data. However upon further inspection of the loci (I've done deep deep sequencing of my genome) it was a false positive. Promethease is very very useful, but it shows you all the data incl…

You mention a "deep sequencing" of your genome,, what does that look like?
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