Saturday, March 5, 2011

My Genome and Me - 1

After eight long weeks, finally received "your genetic profile is ready" email from 23andMe. Living with Max for five years made me come in terms with my mortality; so there was no trepidation while logging into 23andMe account. But I was silently wishing for few surprises... and I got my wish.  
  • I flew out of India to US of A only to find 15 years later that I have 69% European and only 31% Asian genome (chromosome ancestry) !!
  • Both my parents are Diabetic; I was always prepared to give it a warm welcome and was fighting against inheriting it with my lifestyle weapons. The first thing that stood out on my genetic profile - I have a decreased risk of Type 2 and type 1 Diabetes!! (remember, these results are not about nurture or lifestyle or environment; its purely nature) 
There is too much read, learn and understand. So I am officially making this a year long project and will try to post here as I learn about my genetics.
And yes, nature was on my side in Parkinson's lottery - "does not have the LRRK2 G2019S mutation. The G2019S mutation is not the only factor contributing to Parkinson's. People without this mutation can still develop Parkinson's Disease. Parkinson's is a fairly rare disease. The average person has a 1-2% chance of developing the disease during their lifetime. The chance that a person with the G2019S mutation will develop Parkinson's is much higher and increases with age. One recent study found that a person who inherits this mutation from either parent has a 28% chance of developing Parkinson's by the age of 59, 51% by the age of 69 and 74% by the age of 79."

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