In this talk, Andrew covers the red herrings of research into genetic predispositions, and explains where advances are really being made in predicting common complex diseases such as cancer, heart disease, diabetes, and inflammatory bowel disease.

Part of the University of Auckland’s Raising the Bar: Home Edition series.

The world of lifestyle genetics is a very murky one.

There are a whole lot of things that are not diseases but traits, like baldness, food preference, freckles, or addiction, which now have genes associated with them.

Companies have been going direct to consumers asking them to spit into a tube and get information about these genes. Often these types of genetic tests target the worried well, especially through social media.

It’s discrimination by predisposition – making health insurance harder to get for those who need it most.
A collaborative alliance of clinicians, patients and lawyers are now calling for a ban on health insurers using people’s genomic information to underwrite insurance policies and premiums.