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Health and genetic ancestry testing: time to bridge the gap

BACKGROUND: It is becoming increasingly difficult to keep information about genetic ancestry separate from information about health, and consumers of genetic ancestry tests are becoming more aware of the potential health risks associated with particular ancestral lineages. Because some of the propos...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Smart, Andrew, Bolnick, Deborah A., Tutton, Richard
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: BioMed Central 2017
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5223458/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28069037
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12920-016-0240-3
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author Smart, Andrew
Bolnick, Deborah A.
Tutton, Richard
author_facet Smart, Andrew
Bolnick, Deborah A.
Tutton, Richard
author_sort Smart, Andrew
collection PubMed
description BACKGROUND: It is becoming increasingly difficult to keep information about genetic ancestry separate from information about health, and consumers of genetic ancestry tests are becoming more aware of the potential health risks associated with particular ancestral lineages. Because some of the proposed associations have received little attention from oversight agencies and professional genetic associations, scientific developments are currently outpacing governance regimes for consumer genetic testing. MAIN TEXT: We highlight the recent and unremarked upon emergence of biomedical studies linking markers of genetic ancestry to disease risks, and show that this body of scientific research is becoming part of public discourse connecting ancestry and health. For instance, data on genome-wide ancestry informative markers are being used to assess health risks, and we document over 100 biomedical research articles that propose associations between mitochondrial DNA and Y chromosome markers of genetic ancestry and a wide variety of disease risks. Taking as an example an association between coronary heart disease and British men belonging to Y chromosome haplogroup I, we show how this science was translated into mainstream and online media, and how it circulates among consumers of genetic tests for ancestry. We find wide variations in how the science is interpreted, which suggests the potential for confusion or misunderstanding. CONCLUSION: We recommend that stakeholders involved in creating and using estimates of genetic ancestry reconsider their policies for communicating with each other and with the public about the health implications of ancestry information. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s12920-016-0240-3) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.
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spelling pubmed-52234582017-01-11 Health and genetic ancestry testing: time to bridge the gap Smart, Andrew Bolnick, Deborah A. Tutton, Richard BMC Med Genomics Debate BACKGROUND: It is becoming increasingly difficult to keep information about genetic ancestry separate from information about health, and consumers of genetic ancestry tests are becoming more aware of the potential health risks associated with particular ancestral lineages. Because some of the proposed associations have received little attention from oversight agencies and professional genetic associations, scientific developments are currently outpacing governance regimes for consumer genetic testing. MAIN TEXT: We highlight the recent and unremarked upon emergence of biomedical studies linking markers of genetic ancestry to disease risks, and show that this body of scientific research is becoming part of public discourse connecting ancestry and health. For instance, data on genome-wide ancestry informative markers are being used to assess health risks, and we document over 100 biomedical research articles that propose associations between mitochondrial DNA and Y chromosome markers of genetic ancestry and a wide variety of disease risks. Taking as an example an association between coronary heart disease and British men belonging to Y chromosome haplogroup I, we show how this science was translated into mainstream and online media, and how it circulates among consumers of genetic tests for ancestry. We find wide variations in how the science is interpreted, which suggests the potential for confusion or misunderstanding. CONCLUSION: We recommend that stakeholders involved in creating and using estimates of genetic ancestry reconsider their policies for communicating with each other and with the public about the health implications of ancestry information. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s12920-016-0240-3) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users. BioMed Central 2017-01-09 /pmc/articles/PMC5223458/ /pubmed/28069037 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12920-016-0240-3 Text en © The Author(s). 2017 Open AccessThis article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated.
spellingShingle Debate
Smart, Andrew
Bolnick, Deborah A.
Tutton, Richard
Health and genetic ancestry testing: time to bridge the gap
title Health and genetic ancestry testing: time to bridge the gap
title_full Health and genetic ancestry testing: time to bridge the gap
title_fullStr Health and genetic ancestry testing: time to bridge the gap
title_full_unstemmed Health and genetic ancestry testing: time to bridge the gap
title_short Health and genetic ancestry testing: time to bridge the gap
title_sort health and genetic ancestry testing: time to bridge the gap
topic Debate
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5223458/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28069037
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12920-016-0240-3
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