

What's it like getting your DNA results back from 23andMe - philipkd
http://philosophistry.com/archives/2011/02/dna-test-23andme-review.html

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bkrausz
Well, my 23andMe results told me I was a Tay-Sachs carrier, and my parents
already knew they both weren't, which brought up some interesting questions on
both my past and future. Fortunately I'm more likely to assume tests are wrong
than my parent's cheated, but it was the future thing I was more concerned
with.

I later found out I was part of the 23andMe data mixup[1], so the results I
had for a week actually weren't mine. Kind of killed my faith in the system,
and when I got my actual results they were quite boring. At the very least it
makes a good story, worth the $99 in my book.

[1] [http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2010/06/Sample-swaps-
at-23...](http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2010/06/Sample-swaps-
at-23andMe:-a-cautionary-tale)

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ghshephard
I managed to get one of those $100 23andMe deals, so I bought Christmas
presents for my mother, brother, sister in law, niece and nephew (Actually, I
bought them wayyyy in advance on DNA Day - couldn't resist a great deal).
About 7 weeks later, everybody's profile came online, and the relative finder
instantly identified all of us and our probable relationship to each other (it
was correct, in all cases). It's interesting that I share more genetic
similarity with my brother, than I do with my mother, even excluding the Y
chromosome. It took a bit of thinking before my brother came up with the
example of identical twins, who would share almost 100% DNA.

As far as cousins - I have about 100 relatives discovered through the relative
finder - lots, and lots, and lots of 5th and 4th cousins, and a few 3rd
cousins. No second or first cousins yet.

I originally purchased my kit about 4 or 5 years ago for $1000, so the $99
cost is a huge jump in such a short period of time. It's important to note
that 23andMe doesn't do a full DNA Scan, but just samples it in important
locations known as SNPs. Watching the trends on singularityhub.com, I'm
guessing that a full DNA scan will be available to the individual consumer for
$1000 in about five or six years.

~~~
rms
>I'm guessing that a full DNA scan will be available to the individual
consumer for $1000 in about five or six years.

Should be faster than that. I'd put even money down at it being available in
three years, probably even 2.5 or 2 years. Genomic sequencing has been one of
the fastest Moore's Law analogues in history.

~~~
VladRussian
the shotgun sequencing (specifically the assembly stage) directly relies on
the advances of the original Moore's Law

------
endtime
I've done 23andMe as well. If anyone's curious I'm happy to answer questions.
Without prompting, I don't have much to add other than that the relative
finder doesn't seem to work quite as well as I'd hoped. I do have one distant
cousin on 23andMe, and it did find her, but assigned higher
confidence/probability/whatever to a few tens of people who mostly seem not to
be cousins. This might not be their fault - I imagine a very small fraction of
the population is even on 23andMe - but I still haven't found any long-lost
cousins yet.

Edit: On reflection, this is probably because I'm an Ashkenazi Jew, and we
have a relatively small gene pool and relatively cyclic ancestor graphs (at
least when considered undirected). If your ethnic background is broader/less
insular then the relative finder will probably work better for you.

~~~
Maciek416
I've had better luck with relative finder as well. My very first contact was
able to trace his great-great-grandparents roots to a village that is only 30
minutes away or so from my Dad's ancestor's town. This person is marked as a
5th cousin, so I'd consider that pretty compelling.

Regarding your "mostly seem not to be cousins" comment, I think people have an
overly narrow definition of cousins where 23andme has a much more strict
genetic definition. If you look at their FAQ, they claim that it's fairly
accurate that if someone is marked as a relative, that's a relative. The
degree of relation may be off by a generation or two, but it's there.

I find it interesting how many people, even those who sign up for the service
and enable visibility on relative finder, heck, even those who fill out their
profiles with surnames and extra information, either don't respond to contact
requests or entirely dismiss relations dubbed by the system "likely 3rd
cousin" as "impossible".

At the 6th, 5th, and even 4th cousin levels, especially going into the past
with typically large families, we are talking about fairly large networks of
people. I see a lot of folks say things like "I can trace my roots back 10
generations", when they really just mean one single paternal line, for
example. How can you be sure that someone didn't jump in the hay with someone
else in secret that one summer in 1807, or that some forgotten sister of a
great-great-grandparent went off to America for 5 years before returning to
her homeland, etc? With such large numbers of people, the likeliness of having
huge numbers of cousins goes way up.

For example, look how many hops it takes to get to your 4th cousin:

<http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=4th+cousin>

Can we all vouch for all the surnames, brothers and sisters, grandparents,
great-grandparents, etc in a relation even as "close" as this?

~~~
endtime
Well, I can trace back 3-4 generations, at least in terms of surnames and
maiden names, and none of the people I've talked to are even from the same
parts of Europe or know of any relatives with the same last names (with one
exception for Miller, which is a very common name). I've talked to several
Ukrainians, one Portuguese, and one Argentinian - whereas my family is
English, Dutch, German, Lithuanian, Polish, and Russian. As far as I know I
didn't have any Ukrainian ancestors, at least not in the last few generations.

>I think people have an overly narrow definition of cousins where 23andme has
a much more strict genetic definition.

Well, I consider someone to be a cousin based solely on our most recent common
ancestor. If someone happens to have similar genes to me but we haven't shared
an ancestor for 5,000 years then that person's not a cousin for any useful
definition of the word.

It also might be that Asheknazi Jews, as a historically small/insular
community with, therefore, a smaller gene pool, have a different experience
with the relative finder than people with less, uh, incestuous (broadly
speaking) family trees. Edit: Just logged into 23andMe and saw this relevant
thread: <https://www.23andme.com/you/community/thread/6449/>. So I guess my
speculation was right, and my concerns should be disregarded if you aren't
part of a similarly small population.

~~~
ghshephard
Each Cousin will go back typically (there area always exception) go back no
more than 50 years. In my family, the separation in age between youngest and
oldest cousin is 35 years. So, A fifth cousin speaks to a common ancestor no
more than 250 years ago.

I have 472 Predicted Relatives on 23andMe, 382 of which are 5th cousin or
closer. It's pretty awesome seeing all these "Percent DNA Shared" at 0.09% to
0.86% (My previous High) and then seeing my mother/brother/niece/nephew pop
out at 49.98%, 43.77%, 21.92%, 21.11%

I do wish that my "3rd" cousin would respond to me - they are the only ones I
think I have a chance of tracking down.

------
JacobAldridge
Combining two recent HN discussions here - this one, and one yesterday on the
difficulty in getting insurance in the US
(<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2247560>)

What are the consequences (immediate, or further down the track), not so much
of using a service like 23andMe (I imagine it will be a fairly standard part
of medical testing in X generations) but of posting on your blog that you're
(to paraphrase) 1.90x as likely to contract Parkinson's?

~~~
Maciek416
One simple immediate consequence may be that you cannot answer a question like
"do you have any reason to believe that you may be at risk for XYZ" anymore
without potentially having to rely on a result that may or may not have
statistical significance -- or which you may have misunderstood. A lot of
23andme reports are in the form of "if you are east asian and have the
following genotype for SNP rsXXXXXX, you have a 3% chance of developing
condition XYZ". Personal genomics services like 23andme are going out there
and saying that SNPs are pretty reliable, but the reality for some conditions
and traits may still be fuzzy as more data comes in. There may be as-yet
undiscovered SNPs that have a bigger effect on your cancer risk than the ones
their v3 chip happens to cover, for example, and just having a 1 or even a
dozen SNPs may not be enough for a clear picture. On the other hand, an
insurance company might find it risky enough to deny you coverage. Nobody
knows how that will shake out.

In the future, if a given insurance provider knows you have purchased a
service like this, they also can then figure out which SNPs you _know_ your
genotypes for (it would be fairly trivial for any insurance company to find
out which 950,000 or so SNPs 23andme tests for), and can then craft a survey
form asking about these specific traits.

Many people will likely still try the service anyway because they'd rather
know, pro-actively address certain issues, and risk the insurance game, than
not know at all.

[EDIT: Apologies for not having read your question all that clearly. Just
assume the above applies to "admitting you've used the service in public"]

~~~
silencio
> potentially having to rely on a result that may or may not have statistical
> significance

I can't stress this enough. I've had a bunch of friends buy the 23andme kit
while it was on sale recently because they were interested in my results from
a while ago, and their buildup to getting their own results was "what if it
tells me I'm never going to have x?!" and things like that. Kind of
frustrating to explain how it works.

23andme put me at average to low risk of a few things they test for that I
have in real life. One of the more frustrating things to read was that 23andme
declared from preliminary asthma research that I was at lower than average to
average odds, when in my past I've had severe asthma I've even been
hospitalized for.

On the flip side of things, 23andme determined my risk of melanoma from
genetics is 0.1% (as compared to 1.7% average). But I live in Los Angeles and
I get sunburnt/suntanned multiple times a year, not to mention the sheer
number of hours I spend outdoors in general. I regularly track skin changes
and visit a dermatologist once in a while because new spots and changes on my
skin stress the hell out of me. I know my risk likely skyrockets past the 1.7%
easily if you take my environment into account.

Insurance companies already play this risk/percentage game anyway with lots of
other information, and I don't think I see a big of a risk as people being
denied insurance from testing like this. If anything, it means everyone can be
more proactive and save money and lives in the end. (Of course, I am being
pretty naively optimistic here...) I mean, I imagine that's what they're
trying to do on some level when they send me pamphlets about STD testing and
prenatal care in the mail every other week just because they know I'm a
20something female on birth control.

------
tibbon
I'm glad I did it, and the results didn't freak me out/scare me or lead to any
massive revelations. For the $100 I paid, it was worth it. For the $500 that
they normally charge, I felt it was too much.

The stuff about family origin/history was pretty boring for me and just
confirmed that I'm as white/boring as they come. Both lines from Europe? You
don't say... But for someone who doesn't know that they are 100% European, it
could be interesting to see what else is in your background.

~~~
CWuestefeld
_just confirmed that I'm as white/boring as they come_

What's boring about being white? Sorry, but this attitude strikes me as being
nonsense political correctness. I'm quite sure that whatever race or culture
your ancestors come from, there's plenty to be interested in on a personal
level at the very least.

~~~
prawn
Perhaps that they feel white/boring and that their lineage traces to more of
the same. An Asian person might not be particularly excited to learn that
their ancestors trace back through China. Candidate one, however, might be
more intrigued to find ancestry tracing through Northern Africa, or candidate
through India - just guessing.

~~~
Sticker
correct, I believe that was the obvious point he was trying to make.

The political correctness that is a problem is that you can't say
'white/boring' without offending someone like the person you responded to.

~~~
tibbon
Right on. When I got those results it just confirmed, "hmm, looks like my 5th
grade genealogy project was right. I am from Germany and England afterall!"

It isn't to say that us white people are boring, but just that there was
nothing novel in that part of the results. It was about as exciting as the
genetic test in there that confirmed I have brown eyes. If it said I had blue
eyes, it would have been interesting news to me.

------
larrik
This is posted on the very same day I heard from 23andMe received my and my
wife's samples. Spooky.

(I actually bought the kits on DNA day last year, and just haven't gotten
around to sending them in until now, so this really is weird for me)

~~~
nitrogen
Considering how many people on HN are 23andMe customers, it's statistically
quite likely that at least one HN reader would get an e-mail from 23andMe on
the same day a related HN article is posted :).

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RK
Didn't get mine done, but both of my parents had theirs done. My dad's was
pretty much as expected, as far as ancestry (my grandmother is an avid
genealogist). On my mom's side there is a lost of uncertainty about our
ancestry. Of course, because you only see the mitochondrial DNA result for a
female, its not as informative for someone who is probably a mix (like my
mom). I think an admixture test will be the one that's really useful.

My dad downloaded his raw data and is enlisting me to use some of the 3rd
party tools out there to do some other comparisons, but I haven't really dug
into it yet. Home bioinformatics...

------
jeffthebear
I got on the deal for $100 on DNA day and found that most of the results I got
back were interesting and cool to show my friends but it didn't change my
life/habits in anyway. Most of the 23andMe's data is currently targeted for
people of European descent and there isn't a whole lot of data on people of
African and Asian descent in their database but even many of the European
traits have varying confidence markers based on genetic data we have available
today. I am hoping that much more data will be coming in the future but at the
moment I wouldn't accept the results as gospel.

------
jcookster
Looks like one of their competitors (pathway) has posted about an open
position for a developer <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2255109>

------
kenjackson
Has 23andMe done any targeted work w/ adoption sites and such? I know from
talking to adopted friends, they often don't have info on family medical
history. This would be really useful for them.

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cowmixtoo
If you want to get more use out of the raw data 23andMe produces from your DNA
sequencing I encourage everyone to check out this free / GPL'd Firefox plugin
my company created.

<http://www.snptips.com/>

------
Jun8
My big question is: does 23andMe get to keep the DNA data, what does the User
Agreement say?

~~~
nickpinkston
They give you the choice of either having them keep it - or throw it away. I
had them keep it because they can then run further tests without needing my
spit again.

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axod
Never understood why people pay money for this. It seems crazy to me.

~~~
randallsquared
It seems crazy to be curious about your genes? Could you elaborate on why?

~~~
axod
Few reasons...

    
    
      * I don't think the tech is mature enough to be 100% reliable
      * It'll probably just worry people more than anything.
      * Doctors are trained. Some guy getting this thing isn't.
    

I think it's a hypercondriacs dream.

~~~
radu_floricica
Well, for example:

    
    
      * It's fun. It really is. Even the part about the Parkinson, after you get over it.
      * You're pretty much subsidizing a new industry.
      * There is a chance you can actually use this. Either if you actually 
        have a rare disease gene, or if you're a carrier. 
    

In any case, I intend to take a printout to my next medical visit.

~~~
axod
> In any case, I intend to take a printout to my next medical visit.

I'm sure doctors _hate_ this. I'm of the opinion we should leave trained
professionals to do their job.

~~~
radu_floricica
Hate?! Trust me, I have no intention of pestering him/her with every minute
detail of the chart. But I do know I have a (somewhat) higher risk for
prostate cancer in advanced age, and I sure want to have a talk with him about
ways to mitigate it. I was under the impression that is pretty much his job...

But I think I understand a bit of what you mean. For example, my results lists
obesity at "normal", with a whopping 60% chance. Same way, one slightly raised
chance of a certain disease may not mean much when compared to a host of other
illnesses with much higher baseline chances. As it happens though, prostate
cancer is already high on the list, so I do intent to fully make use of the
information.

------
GvS
Interesting service. Anyone know something similar in Europe?

~~~
shazow
Last I checked, 23andMe shipped to Europe (with additional shipping fees).

~~~
prr
I had mine done last year. You'll also need to factor in the DHL shipping fees
for returning your sample (30 Pounds from the UK, over and above whatever they
charged for shipping it to you)

