Blogger shares his increased type 2 diabetes risk with the world

Genetic genealogist Blaine Bettinger has a fantastic post dissecting and contextualising a rather worrying result from his personal genomic analysis: a 50-60% increased lifetime risk of type 2 diabetes.Blaine is unfortunate enough to be among the 1-2% of individuals who carry two risky versions at each of three major risk variants for the disease. (It's worth noting that type 2 diabetes risk is determined by many different genetic variants, most of which remain unknown, as well as environmental factors - so Blaine's discovery is very far from a certain diagnosis of the disease.)Blaine's attitude towards the results is admirably pragmatic:> I, personally, am not afraid of my genetic information. I'm not afraid of any potential psychological effects it might have, nor am I afraid of any repercussions of sharing my genetic information with others. It is certainly clear that I lost the genetic lottery when it comes to diabetes risk, but there is no genome so perfect that it lacks at least one serious risk.

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For me personally, interpreting my genotype is no more dangerous than the receiving the results of a home glucose test. Indeed, the results of the glucose test represent a current reality while the genotype merely suggests a future possibility.

I also applaud his decision to share this information with the world, a very personal way of demonstrating the spirit of openness to genetic data that he has consistently advocated in his posts. I completely agree with his reasoning here:

Although I won't go so far as to say that there is never any danger to anyone upon receiving genetic information, I will go so far as to say that it should be the individual, not the government, that decides whether the danger exists.

Amen. Subscribe to Genetic Future.

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