News for hackers. Stuff that matters.
Re:A 23andMe Patent by _mulder_ on Thursday October 03, 2013 @07:01AM (#6488118)
Has anyone used the 23andMe service? I'd like to know how accurate the results are.

Can they say you definitely carry a gene for diabetes or lactose intolerance, for example, or do they just say you're at a higher chance of developing this? The website example given for carrier diseases looks so vague it's not worth bothering with ("You are a carrier of one or more infected conditions"... great, which ones!)

If they can give me a list of things I need to be mindful of in the future and, more importantly, why, I'd happily pay $99 for that. I.e; you've got this and that gene which leaves you susceptible to this condition which may lead to heart disease, etc. and we're %xx certain.

Does anyone have any experience of this kind of thing?

Re:A 23andMe Patent by raphman on Thursday October 03, 2013 @07:52AM (#6488261)
No personal experience but someone blogged (in German, unfortunately) recently about a bug in 23andMe's analysis algorithm that resulted in him being told that he was terminally ill. He spent a lot of time learning everything about the purported gene malfunction, found the bug in 23andMe's assumptions and got it fixed upstream. Certainly not a nice experience.

[1] http://www.ctrl-verlust.net/23andme-wie-ich-fur-todkrank-erk...

Re:A 23andMe Patent by imaffett on Thursday October 03, 2013 @07:52AM (#6488265)
Hey _mulder_

I have an account - for me it was worth it. It confirmed some "suspicions" I had about some of my families genetic predisposition.

It can show inherited conditions, and what genes you have (maybe 1 of the 4 markers for a condition).

They do show % certainty, and then they also show your chance of certain health risks vs the national average.

I'd be happy to explain more - I'll admit I haven't looked into all the results (or try to understand them), but I was happy with the $99 cost.