Eurogene

I began this by commenting on Mark Henderson’s Blog about his genetic results, I had just had an espresso (and I live in Italy) & got carried away, it’s Mark’s fault as well, he invited comments via Twitter. The Times has become a subscription site for a few weeks – I really urge you to go and subscribe, it’s worth it for now at least (£1 for 30 days), the science coverage is the best in it’s class. Anyway, here are my comments on his excellent article, which you should go and read at: http://bit.ly/9H7iSP   Good stuff Mark and glad that others are climbing over the paywall to read it, it feels pretty lonely here! Just a few comments: 1) "Many of these, however, are based on preliminary, unreplicated findings [re 23andMe]" - this is OK and glad that Gutman agreed yesterday that prelim findings/information is OK as long as it is clearly labelled as such. I'm interested for professional and personal reasons in prelim findings, I can get them from the primary sourc...

The NIH is seeking input and advice on the following items: Are there any types of genetic tests that should not be included in the GTR? All tests that make some sort of utility claim should be included, also those that are not overtly connected to health (e.g. Child IQ, sports performance, baldness, etc). One aim of the GTR should be to create confidence in genetic testing and help protect against false or exaggerated claims. To have one single reliable (worldwide I hope) location where anyone, scientist, medic, consumer, journalist, business partner, etc can go to would be very helpful. If we end up with fragmented GTRs for different areas it will be less useful. Although run by NIH the criteria should include more than just strictly health applications Further, the GTR should go beyond “testing” – it should cover all services, especially interpretation services which will become the main area of “personal genetics” as the testing part itself becomes routine. What are the ...

Yet another clinical trial of folic acid and heart disease has been published – an extremely well designed trial where the results suggest true adherence to the vitamins vs. placebo regime. The conclusions are: Taken together with the previous homocysteine-lowering trials, the results of SEARCH indicate that folic acid supplementation has no significant adverse effects on cancer or other major health outcomes, even if it also produces no beneficial effects on cardiovascular disease. In addition, these results highlight the importance of focusing on drug treatments (eg, aspirin, statins, and antihypertensive therapy) and lifestyle changes (in particular, stopping smoking and avoiding excessive weight gain) that are of proven benefit, rather than lowering homocysteine with folic acid–based vitamin supplements, for the prevention of cardiovascular disease. JAMA: Effects of Homocysteine-Lowering With Folic Acid Plus Vitamin B12 vs Placebo on Mortality and Major Morbidity in Myocardial ...

There is a new “old” kid on the block – announced last week at the Consumer Genetics Conference by Dr Stephen Murphy, aka @genesherpas , http://genetichub.com/ This is just a short note about the site and service because it seems likely that it was finalised in a rush to get it ready for the CGC announcement. It’s too early to judge what it is and what it will become. Steve Murphy is of course very well known as an outspoken critic of most DTC genomics via his blog. I am wondering whether his now official status as a fully commercial genetics service provider, beyond his own medical practice, will affect the tone of his future posts. I doubt it…but it’s a fact that the situation is now different, the opposition is now the competition and a potential conflict of interest has to be acknowledged, at least. One thing is certain though – his blog history means that he has set himself very high standards regarding the delivery of genetic testing So what is the Genetic Hub? At the mome...

Yesterday I ordered a book from Amazon called “Outsmart Your Genes” – this was prompted by a tweet from @genesherpas:   Just got my copy http://www.outsmartyourgenes.com/ my Friend Brandon Colby MD's great work. It is a must read for all. That means AnneW too. It wasn’t too expensive and it may be interesting – it also could be part of a slick marketing campaign, a few days previously a press release announced the launch of “Existence Genetics LLC, the world’s first predictive medicine company…”. With the website of the book linking to the Existence website , the twitter and facebook links, and so on, it does look like: @dgmacarthur The "Outsmart your genes" book that @ GeneSherpas is spruiking looks like extended ad for author's company: http://bit.ly/8Zanrd We’ll see, I’ll update when I read the book, meanwhile I learnt some Australian slang as well… First of all – there is nothing wrong with any of the above, it’s all fine and I have not much t...

This article in today’s Independent prompted me to finish off and post this – as far as good nutritional advice is concerned confusion reigns. 1. Sat fats are OK after all 2. Recently we were informed that the “5 a day” advice did not prevent cancer ( see previous post ) 3. We read that >400 IU / day vitamin E increases mortality thanks to a 2005 meta-analysis (Conclusion: “High-dosage (≥400 IU/d) vitamin E supplements may increase all-cause mortality and should be avoided”) 4. In 2007, a widely cited meta-analysis proved “the myth of antioxidant supplements” – they simply do no good and may even do harm 5. The subject of this post – 2 major studies show that vitamin E and Selenium, despite early promise, do not protect against prostate cancer ( SELECT and PHS ) 6. According to one author of the SELECT study –  “The prospects for cancer prevention through micronutrient supplementation have never looked worse” So how much of all this is true...

Headlines all over the press today were “ 5 a day doesn’t prevent cancer ”. So after all these years set in stone it’s all been a waste of time? Hard to tell really, the paper in question is all about cancer but as the Walter Willett editorial points out the same study group provided evidence that 5 a day reduces stroke and heart disease by 30%. But maybe that’s not right either, maybe Dr Aragon in Woody Allen’s Sleeper was right (this is from an interesting article about nutritional genomics by the way): The study: Fruit and Vegetable Intake and Overall Cancer Risk in the European Prospective Investigation Into Cancer and Nutrition (EPIC) by Boffetta et al , published online in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute. It involved almost 500,000 people in a prospective study looking at nutrition and cancer between 1992-2000. Over 30,000 developed cancer but the detailed analysis revealed only a minor F&V protective effect of a few percent, if any at all. Disappointing to...