23andMe Genetic Testing - What Is My Neanderthal Percentage?
The company 23andMe provides low-cost personal genetics analysis for the retail customer. The process is simple, you spit in a vial, seal it up and mail it to the company.
Your saliva contains a small amount of white blood cells which are immune cells in your body and they also happen to contain nuclei that contain your DNA.
23andMe will isolate the DNA from your white blood cells, amplify it to create an analyzable amount of material and expose that to their custom DNA analysis chip. Well, it is a bit more complicated than that but the focus of this post is on the information that they analyze and not the technical details of their analysis technique.
23andMe had a bit of a run-in with the U.S. FDA and it looks like the amount of information that they are currently allowed to provide to customers is now more limited than when I took the test. Even so, here is what they provide, or at least used to provide.
Genetic Disease Testing
23andMe provides information on 53 inherited conditions including BRCA1 and BRCA2 the breast cancer genetic variants, Cystic Fibrosis, Sickle Cell Anemia, Tay-Sachs, Maple Syrup Urine Disease.
Most people do not have these genetic diseases as they are quite rare so opening this page, although stressful, usually bears good news. I personally had the good news result "Variant Absent" on all 53 diseases. Nothing to brag about as most of you would get the same good news.
Health Risks
The analysis also provides test results for up to 122 different health risks from the serious (Alzheimer's disease) to the less serious (restless leg syndrome).
A longer list of some of the tests provided are the estimated genetic risk of:
- Age-related macular degeneration,
- Basal Cell carcinoma,
- Celiac disease,
- Cluster headaches,
- Coronary heart disease,
- Gallstones,
- Gout,
- Hyper- and hypo- thyroidism,
- Kidney stones,
- Lupus,
- Migraines,
- Oral and Throat cancer,
- Stroke,
- Type 1 and Type 2 Diabetes,
- and about 106 more.
The analysis provides an estimated risk of developing a condition from the genetic factor alone and it does not account for environmental factors.
Drug Response Sensitivity
The analysis provides some information about whether you would be expected to respond to certain drugs more strongly, less strongly or the same as the average person.
This information could be useful if you were prescribed some medication by your doctor. If you were assessed to respond less strongly then the doctor might want to increase your dosage.
Their tests analyzed 25 drugs including statins, warfarin, proton pump inhibitors, anti-depressants, heroin and caffeine.
I turn out to be an efficient metabolizer of caffeine which means that people like me tend to drink more coffee than the average person (this is true). I also do not have the heroin addiction genetic variation which is also good news.
Traits
On the less medical side of things they also estimate your probability of having certain physicals traits like hair straightness or curliness, wet or dry ear wax, eye colour, freckling, lactose intolerance, sweet taste preference and about 60 other traits.
I found that these reports were mostly hit and miss, sometimes correct, sometimes not. At best they provided some entertainment value and a bit of education about the role of genetics in the traits that you have.
Ancestry Analysis
The big selling point for DNA analysis from the retail viewpoint is ancestry analysis. Just where did your ancestors come from? Maybe you don't want to know this but it turns out that a lot of people do.
23andMe uses a database of genetic variants that are more common to population groups in specific geographic locations and compare your variations to this information.
With this knowledge they are able to estimate how much of your genetic makeup is due to European, Asian, African or Native American ancestors.
This is an interesting and fun report and many people report on the web that they have been surprised by the results.
Neanderthal Ancestry Percentage
There is a theory that our human ancestors interbred with the nearby Neanderthal populations many, many thousands of years ago. Even though the Neanderthals are now extinct they live on in a fashion in our genes.
This analysis was the biggest reason I purchased the 23andMe test and I was very happy to learn that I came out at 2.9% Neanderthal which beats about two-thirds of the population out there.
Concerns and Criticisms
23andMe markets itself as a useful health tool (or used to until their run-in with the FDA) as well as providing valuable medical and scientific research. In fact a number of papers have been published because of the 23andMe data. For example, the bright light sneeze response (photic sneeze response) genetic linkage research is a 23andme discovery.
However there are some concerns and criticisms of the company and this type of activity.
The biggest criticism is that 23andMe is simply a genetic data hoarder and they use the data solely to sell to other companies and profit from that sale. 23andMe and indicates that any data sold would be anonymized but there are still concerns, as always, about the trustworthiness and competence of private companies for protecting customers private data.
There are concerns that even if 23andMe is trustworthy and honourable a company that could potentially buy them in the future may not be so honourable.
There are concerns that the database of the company may be hacked releasing the genetic information of their customers out into the public. Data that many people may not want to be known.
Closing Words
23andMe is an interesting idea and they provide (or at least used to provide) a novel service to the retail level customer.
It is important to remember that genetics is not destiny and the analyses they provide are risks and not certainties. The mechanisms that go into having a disease manifest are complicated and it is always important to talk to a health care professional about any results.
The tests are relatively cheap but the decision whether to make use of their services is a serious one and is not a matter to be taken lightly.
I think that the costs of these tests is becoming cheaper every year and the day will come when these tests will become a regular and automatic part of your annual physical at the doctor's office.
Just spit into a vial and your doctor will get the testing done for your as part of your general health care. So it might be best overall to simply wait for that day.
Thank you for reading my post.
Post Sources
https://www.23andme.com/
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/berin-szoka/fda-just-banned-23andmes-_b_4339182.html
http://journals.plos.org/plosgenetics/article?id=10.1371/journal.pgen.1000993
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archaic_human_admixture_with_modern_humans
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/23andme-is-terrifying-but-not-for-the-reasons-the-fda-thinks/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_blood_cell
Nice piece.
I was ready to add the "Concerns and Criticisms" section before reaching it in your article. Luckily it was there so my starting bias was sated :D
I have spent days looking and analyzing the mitochondrial DNA map and structure of each country and how we came to inhabit this world. More questions than answers though but that is generally OK, there is a lot more to discover.
Many of my friends took the test and found pretty obvious results.
For the ones wanting to explore more into it, Dr.Alice Roberts had a series on BBC (documentaries) and there were others before her doing similar studies.
In the end the tests are just a fun way to find out more about your ancestry, without putting much thought into it.
Here is one of the images showing mtDNA or Y haplogroups of the world:
Thanks for reading to the end. I agree that I did not cover everyting but it is only one post in a blog. This topic area is large enough that it will take several posts to cover everything.
Also, this is the internet. Our attention spans have been decimated so I like to keep posts to about 5 or 6 screen pages at most. Longer than that and most readers fade.
An interesting video about this company was made where you actually see what they do with the samples. Ok so they could have prepared the fakeness in advance and all that conspiracy but it's interesting to watch how they do things anyway:
(Skip to about 10 minutes for disposal part)
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Many girlfriends have told me that I am 100% Neanderthal but now I have scientific proof that they were wrong.
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this is what got me and i have held on to it!
awesome article.
I wanted to do one of these, but it turned out the health part was not available for people from my country (Cyprus). Bummer. Only the ancestry part was available, which I could care less about.
Very interesting article. Thanks!
Interesting Research. Thanks for sharing.
Hey cool, you got a distilled post. Congratulations man!