Ethical dilemmas abound.

Please remember that only in certain cases are genes equal to destiny.

As the cost of having one’s own genetic code analyzed continues to drop—with some predicting the $1,000 genome analysis being imminent— what do people want to know? How? When? Really?

There will have to be a new category of counselors to present, interpret and guide patients who seek this knowledge.

Risk tolerance is one big consideration. Proactive people want to know everything—or often think they do.

Aside from eye color and some other obviously inheritable characteristics which make family members look a lot alike, our genes interact with our environments—the body, the place we live, the place we work and, broadly, our worlds. That is why so much research seeks to learn how humans can influence their risks for serious or fatal diseases. In many cases, we can help ourselves.

But what about the times when genes are destiny? When the risk is high for a problem no one knows how to bring down—or not yet? Would you want to know then? Maybe. Maybe not. A single person may not be concerned about getting this kind of information but someone planning a family may feel an urgent need to know—especially if a devastating disease affects a disproportionate share of one family’s members. Alzheimer’s is an example of that. A family whose has a grandmother, mother, son and grand-daughter—the latter showing marked signs of the disease in her early 40s—probably needs to know before making life decisions of many kinds. Their savings plans, oddly enough, will matter a lot. Later in life, they will need home care, for instance. How many children can one couple afford to have if they carry the gene? And on. And on.

People like horoscopes and other non-science informational sources to predict how the day, month or year will go.

If you could get the ultimate answers about how your life will go, do you want to know? That is the question. Patients need help getting to that answer as gene testing becomes an affordable choice, especially for people with specific disease risks.

BBC

“A US scientist has had all his DNA screened for genes which predict the diseases he may develop in later life.

“Stephen Quake’s genetic profile was probed for genes linked to dozens of diseases, such as cancer and diabetes.

“The healthy 40-year-old was told he was at increased risk of heart attack, diabetes and some cancers.

“Scientists say the study, published in the Lancet, ushers in a new era of personalised medicine, but raises ethical dilemmas.”

Source: BBC, April 30, 2010

Citation: The Lancet, Early Online Publication, 30 April 2010 doi:10.1016/S0140-6736(10)60599-5