Forum:Mere Instinct or Genetically Distinct?...kickstarter

Question

[Rm]

Found this interesting kickstarter on Book ...

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1426463261/mere-instinct-or-genetically-distinct-0

About this project

MERE INSTINCT OR GENETICALLY DISTINCT?

ARE YOU "WEARING" THE WRONG GENES?

As the title suggests, this book is about our genome and our unique genetic profiles (variants and mutations) that control our health and well-being. Secondly, this book discusses innovative genome sequencing technology called "Next Generation Sequencing" which is improving, prolonging and even saving lives. Genetic variants are changes in our genome that differ from our expected genome sequence.The total variations in our genome create a unique genetic profile for each one of us. The book discusses how this distinct profile dictates our health and well-being. It also discusses how to know if your health condition or disease may be due to a genetic variant, impacting your life now or in the future.

[mikhail.shugay]

The ambient sound in this video is totally crazy, I can even hear how the slides are changed with hitting the space bar :)) Anyways this book should have the same issues as 23andMe a while ago.

Answer 1

[pld]

...for all readers who are concerned about their own and their loved-ones' unique genetic profile and how a single genetic "mistake" may be impacting their health and well-being, right now or in the future. The book also discusses how the Next Generation Sequencing technology can help couples make critical and lifesaving decisions about conception, pregnancy and child bearing.

This is fairly strongly worded.

Some of these mistakes can even dictate if a person will live or die.

Spoiler alert: we all die. This is strongly worded if not incorrect, e.g. Huntington's is considered terminal, but usually pneumonia, suicide or other health problems are what kills someone. For some diseases this type of distinction may be massively important. This is similar to what 23andMe got in trouble for, just because you don't have the "my heart sucks" gene, doesn't mean you can eat bacon dipped in lard. This is so important to explain to people, they have to understand the difference between correlation, risk and causal mechanisms, all in the context of how diet, exercise and lifestyle impact health.

This book seems to talk all about SNPs, but SNPs aren't the only form of genetic polymorphism and are especially not the only ones that cause disease. Another very important point, if one is attempting to educate people about genetic diseases and how different variants of genes can impact health, one has to talk about everything.

Lastly, the title doesn't make any sense. Is the author talking about behavioral genetics at all in the book?

I think it is a great idea, but the author seems to be in a grey area that exists between popsci and a diagnostic tool.

[Rm]

It's not my book, posted it here for its "kickstarter" idea... and to initiate the discussion

[pld]

sed -i 's/you/the author/g' op.txt

[Rm]

good expression joe

[pld]

I'm just kidding! I changed my post! I think that the grey areas between a textbook, popular science, and a diagnostic literature is interesting. It seems like it might be hard to bridge the gap between light on the details popular science and a full blown textbook with out falling into traps like 23andMe.

At the same time, is there a distinction between 23andMe which actually did SNP profiling and some form of analysis, and literature (of any level) describing the health impacts of various SNPs but without doing the sequencing?

I think it is interesting, is it the combination of SNP profile and analysis or just analysis that falls into the FDA's crosshairs.