
The Color Test for Risk of Common Hereditary Cancers in Women and Men - ALee
https://getcolor.com/blog/2016/04/color-for-hereditary-cancer
======
natch
Be careful interpreting the numbers about how much risk is increased for
certain genes. For example, let's say they point out that a certain gene
increases the risk for some malady by 100%.

If the average risk across the entire population being used as a baseline was
0.02% (not 2 percent, but 2 tenths of a percent), then increasing that risk by
100% brings the risk to 0.04%, meaning 4 tenths of a percent, still a very low
risk.

The point is, the way they present the risk numbers is overly alarming and
designed to get you to buy in to the product. I think some people see numbers
like 70% or 100% and immediately think that means those genes indicate a 70%
or 100% chance of developing the disease. This is far from the case.

~~~
icegreentea
Actually, if you look at how Color has specifically called out most of the
risks in their material, they very carefully focus on life-time risks, instead
of 'rates'. So, unless they are completely lying with their numbers, you can
actually look at their 'risk' rates in the naive way.

For example, the BRCA mutations actually result in a 2-3 fold increase in life
time risk in breast cancer (in women), resulting in a 50 to 80% (depending on
what study you trust) life time risk in breast cancer.
([http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK1247/](http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK1247/))

It's kind of weird, but also kind of obvious. Color is choosing to focus on
only the highest correlation/impact mutations. They also require physician buy
in on every test they sell. Because of that, they're really just going to
focus on the blockbluster genes, the ones which we actually have evidence of
high life-time risk.

I mean seriously, their BRCA tests by themselves should sell this test - $250
USD is very affordable as far as genetic tests go.

Oh, and hilariously, Color chose to spend some time/space to focus on BRCA
(rightfully so, it's one of the great validating cases of the power of
genomics and the potential for personalized medicine) without talking about
one of the reasons why BRCA tests were kind of stagnant for 20 years was cause
BRCA1 and BRCA2 (the genes) were patented, along with any diagnostics
involving the those genes.

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kbenson
From the title, I initially assumed it was about human tetrachromats being
more susceptible to certain cancers. I'm really starting to dislike how
companies are using common words for their names, and not even bothering with
weird spelling anymore. :/

1:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tetrachromacy#Human_tetrachrom...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tetrachromacy#Human_tetrachromats)

~~~
jd20
And here I was, imagining a kit with a color spectrometer that would measure
skin tone, as a predictor. I thought, that's a novel idea... had to dig a bit
deeper on the website, to realize it's saliva-based. Makes much more sense.

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polskibus
How does this compare to 23andme which had lots of problems with FDA and
quality of advice it was giving? Does it provide much better quality of risk
monitoring for instance?

~~~
adenadel
Color requires a physician to be involved in the ordering of the test. This is
also just an expansion of the genes that they are testing rather than an
entirely new test. Smaller panels like this are easier to validate.

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brenfrow
Call me old fashioned, but I would rather be ignorant of my chances of cancer
(even if showing me allows me to live longer). I know getting a high
percentage would just cause me lots of anxiety throughout the rest of my life.
I'm rather happy not knowing, living in peace, and dying sooner.

~~~
kafkaesq
If I knew I was at "higher risk" for certain kinds of cancer (which BTW
typically means, say, a 10-30% increase on some _very small_ baseline risk,
say 1 in 1,000 -- and for only a few cancer types), my reaction would be to
make peace with it --

\-- and to make a note to myself to get screened more often. So then (in the
small chance) that it hits, I know I will have done everything possible to
shield my loved ones from the shock of facing my imminent departure, when we
could in fact be using the foreknowledge to stretch my relatively pain- and
incapacitation-free interval out to its utter maximum.

Being as, whenever you've stared down that window in a loved one (and nearly
everyone will at some point in their lives) -- the difference between 6 months
versus 6 weeks (or something much smaller, depending on how the final phases
play out) can make a huge -- sometimes life changing difference for those
around you.

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DyslexicAtheist
I hope their infosec is up to spec. A place like this sounds like a valuable
target.

~~~
DyslexicAtheist
also I wonder why nobody seems to have a problem when a private company
collects DNA data of the general public.

~~~
dnautics
Because it's opt-in?

~~~
DyslexicAtheist
because what happens to the data.

What could possible be more sensitive than DNA records? You have to assume
most of these places will suffer a data-breach sooner or later. In light of
the fact that you can fabricate[1] DNA evidence I think it's a bad idea if any
kind of company can request data from the general public in exchange for a kit
that isn't even FDA approved. If you look behind the scenes and consider where
the _real_ money in this business is the _data_ and not just the sale of the
kit.

[0] [http://www.forensicmag.com/news/2015/02/dna-evidence-can-
be-...](http://www.forensicmag.com/news/2015/02/dna-evidence-can-be-faked)

~~~
dnautics
if you have a problem with it, don't participate.

~~~
backtoyoujim
but what if siblings do? or parents? aren't they basically giving out the rest
of the family, too?

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mhkool
Why don't we wake up: testing for breast cancer colors to learn theair cancer
risk is insignificant when you consider that taking 200 mcg of Selenium every
day reduces the risk of breast cancer with a whopping 80%.

Yes, 80% !! Dr Joel Wallach had to sue the FDA 3 times to be able to say this
in public. Dr Wallach won so you bet that there is plenty of evidence that a
little Selenium should be taken by everybody. It also reduces the risk of
prostate cancer by 50%.

