“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.