Talk

There an increasing number of conditions for which certain a gene variant (or multiple variants) increase your risk for developing disease. These variants doesn’t guarantee that you will get the disease, and not having it doesn’t guarantee that you won’t. But they tell you about your risk.

Denise Grady of the NY Times discusses the findings of a gene variant involved in Type 2 diabetes, and the test that might be available as early as 2007 or 2008.

Dr. Kari Stefansson, Decode’s chief executive, said genetic tests that measure the probability of developing a disease “are a new sort of information that our society is growing rapidly more accustomed to, but it is still not absolutely clear how we are going to use it.”

The first use of a Type 2 diabetes test, he said, would probably be in people with impaired glucose tolerance. Those who came out positive could be treated aggressively, perhaps with drugs. Those who tested negative could be offered a more conservative approach.

For people with a family history and normal glucose tolerance, Dr. Stefansson said, the best use of the test would be to test both the relative with diabetes and the concerned family member. If both tested positive, then the family member was at high risk and could try to do something about it.

What would Grady herself do?

Right now, I’m leaning toward having the test if it becomes available. I’m not sure what I’d do with the results or whether they would mean anything for my future. But I’d like the information, and the right to decide for myself whether to act on it.

(DeCode Genetics is the Icelandic company that discovered these gene variants.)

Technorati Tags: diabetes, genes, risk, treatment, family history, type 2 diabetes, denise grady, decode genetics

This entry was posted on Wednesday, August 9th, 2006 at 12:28 pm and is filed under Family Health & Heredity, Personal Stories. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.