Risky Business

There are definite benefits to working at OMRF. And I’m not just talking about the 401k.

For a writer, getting to walk the halls with some of the finest scientific minds in the world is a real treat. During my reporting days, I was lucky to find a source who knew what he or she was talking about — here I’m lucky if I can take notes fast enough to jot down everything the scientists say.

And I was very lucky to squeeze into OMRF President Stephen Prescott’s schedule to talk about my DNA and whether or not I was going to die.

Well, the answer is yes, I will die (…and the crowd goes wild!), but probably not of a rare genetic disease and probably not tomorrow. Dr. Prescott told me about risk and how few people really understand it.

I tried to explain that I was an expert on Risk and that you just have to get Austrialia and Siam to start an empire, but Dr. Prescott said he was talking about a different kind of risk.

A lot of scientific journals and news reports use relative risk, mostly because it’s easier to calculate and it sounds a lot scarier, he said. Relative risk, for instance, told me I was 30% more likely to get Lou Gehrig’s Disease, or ALS. (Another scientist, Dr. Kenneth Hensley, told me he thinks the logic is flawed further, but that’s another topic.)

“Thirty percent sounds like a lot, right?” he asked me, as if trying to goad me to tears. “But the average risk for anybody to get Lou Gehrig’s Disease is about 1 in 100,000. Which means your additional risk actually puts you at 1.3 in 100,000. That’s not so bad.”

That 1.3 number is absolute risk, which is a more logical, and more difficult to figure, statistic. But if you talk about absolute risk, you put things in perspective and it suddenly becomes a lot clearer that I shouldn’t be freaking out about ALS.

I should be freaking out about prostate cancer, instead. After all, according to my genes, I’ve got a 1 in 3 chance of coming down with that particular malady. Also, I’ve got a bit of family history with prostate cancer. Yikes.

Do you pay attention to your family medical history? Is there anything in particular you’re looking out for or actively working against? Be the first on your block to leave a comment below.

“Well, Get the Bread Out of the Oven and Let’s Eat!”

Less than a week into my genome and I can honestly say, I’m overwhelmed.

While 23andMe is interesting, I found their site pretty limiting in terms of actual information. What they have is well put together, but it doesn’t change the fact that they stop short of telling you every scary thing lurking in your DNA.

Wait…maybe that’s a good thing.

In search of a little more information, I found myself looking at a couple of programs that promised to chew through the raw data provided by 23andMe and spit out information based the contents of SNPedia.com.

Personal Genome Exploreris the prettier of the two, though it’s a little hard to understand the results. With so few people getting this type of test done, most of the people using the programs know what they’re looking for and what everything means. Sadly, your humble narrorator is still trying to learn.

The other program, which I was lucky enough to get from the designer, is Promethease. Again, “user-friendly” isn’t the most applicable term, but considering the jumble of letters it sifted through to give me data, I can forgive it for not being the prettiest girl in town.

So, after all this, what do I know? Not much. And that’s the nature of this information. Your genome is like a politician — it says a lot, but most of it doesn’t mean a thing. I’m slightly more likely than average to develop Lou Gehrig’s Disease and gastic cancer. And according to my genetic makeup, anti-depressants are less likely to affect me.

The truth is, I’m beginning to think of a bit off one of my David Cross comedy CDs when he talked about the Terror Alert Level. A husband mentions the alert went up from yellow to orange and his wife begins to panic.

“What do I do? What do I do?” she asks.

“Well, get the bread out of the over and let’s eat!”

My genes may know all about me, but most of what I know is scary in a pretty futile way. How do you stop yourself getting colorectal cancer at age 83 when you’re not even 30 yet? And if there’s a surefire way to prevent it, why would a genetic proclivity toward that cancer matter? Wouldn’t we all just prevent it anyway?

I just need to try and do right for my body by eating well, exercising and getting regular check-ups. But I was doing that already. I just don’t know what else I need to do.

Maybe I’m just embarrassed?

May 12, 2008 – When I came into work this morning, I did my usual routine. Can of V8 and a bag of veggies go in the fridge, for later. Turn on the computer. Pour myself a cup of coffee. Check the e-mail.

This morning’s e-mail was more of the usual. One piece of junk mail, quarantined. One note from a scientist on availability. A couple of e-mails from friends about lunch and replies to questions. But there was one that stood out.

“Subject: Your Genetic Profile is Ready at 23andMe!”

And my first thought was, I hope these people are better at testing DNA than they are with capitalization.

My second thought, though, was, Oh man, OK, are you ready? Are you ready to find out something bad? It’s been a couple of months now – are you ready to read the book written on your genes?

Well, I wasn’t ready enough. Getting in there is simple, but understanding is something else entirely. The first thing I noticed was that four letters kept popping up – A, T, C and G. Why? Because those are the four components of DNA. I’m nothing but long strings of adenosine, thymine, cytosine and guanine.

After boning up a little on the basics, I got back in there and noticed something else. There are a few studies they say are top shelf, meaning the scientific community has done some widespread tests and replicated results and everybody pretty much agrees on the results.

Take alcohol flush reaction, for instance. They’re pretty confidant that the ALDH2 gene has something to do with whether you get flushed, dizzy and nauseous when you drink alcohol. Those with two adenosine proteins are very likely. Lucky for me and my slowly growing wine collection, I have two thymine proteins there, which means I don’t turn red or immediately get sick when I take a sip of the good stuff.

I’ll report back on more revelations of my genome soon, after I’ve taken a little more time to explore. In the meantime, leave any questions or wine scores in the comments.

Spitting for Science

The process for donating DNA was…awkward.

When my boss suggested a story in which I get my genome tested, I was expecting needles. I don’t know why, exactly, but I immediately envisioned white lab coats and goggles and latex gloves and scary needles. As a frequent watcher of television, I’ve seen DNA taken with mouth swabs, so why my mind leapt to a blood sample is beyond me.

Needless (and needle-less, ha ha, Vaudeville!) to say, it wasn’t that complex, but it’s wasn’t that comfortable.

There are only a few companies out there that do commercial genome testing. We chose to use 23 and Me – so named because of the 23 chromosome pairs they examine – and paid them about $1,000 for the service.