Disease, illness, genes and your genome

Do you feel good after a morning coffee or totally jittery ?

Whether your body metabolizes coffee quickly, leaving that good feeling, or processes the caffeine in the coffee slowly, leaving you feeling jittery for hours depends upon one gene. The gene comes in a fast and a slow version. If you have the fast version - coffee is good. If you have the slow version - coffee is bad.

This starts to explain why in some medical research coffee is linked to heart attacks but other research completely exonerates coffee. It depends upon the genetics of the people selected for the research project and usually the genetics of the research subjects are not tested prior to starting the tests.

More than a dozen companies now offer to test your DNA and tell you what to worry about.

The Human Genome Project was the first to decipher the complete (or close to complete) DNA for human beings. The results from this project were not for a specific individual but now the capability to analyse the complete DNA for one individual is with us. But expensive - very expensive.

KNOME is offering to sequence, for a fee, the DNA of any individual.

NAVIGENICS is linking decoding your DNA to genetic counseling. Most people willing to shell out $25,000 to have their DNA sequenced have a reason or at least a big worry. Do I have a big health issue looming up !

23andme and deCodeMe have more limited ambitions - to identify any nasty genes in your DNA and let you know about them. These two do not sequence your whole DNA - just go looking for the unpleasant truths. This is why these two are charging around $1,000 to $2,000.

Any new field of science is going to have 'entrepreneurial' entrants. California last month sent out letter to 13 companies offering genetic testing telling them to stop offering their services in California. This audio report gives more information.

The Economist says in essence "not yet worth the money'.

However genetic testing is starting to enter main-stream medicine - look at this position statement from the gastroenterologists. 

There is a whole profusion of organizations trying to be the lead in creating an ethical DNA testing industry.

Genetic testing is probably within a decade of being an every day activity but you need a good reason to shell out $1,000 this year. Anybody offering DNA analysis for under $100 is going to provide just that amount of useful information!