BioQuakes

AP Biology class blog for discussing current research in Biology

Author: andygen

The Problems with Ancestry Tests (23andMe, Ancestry.com, etc.)

By

On January 21, 2020

In Student Post

Over the past five years or so, ancestry and DNA tests have risen in popularity due to people’s desire to find out what medical conditions they are at risk for, or where their ancestors are from.  The most common concern I have heard about as a result of these tests was that the companies would sell your DNA to third parties or the government (while there is a chance this could be true this will not be the focus of this article).  However, the true problems are not conspiracy driven, yet they are scientifically driven and verifiably true.

Many people using these tests do not realize how these tests actually work and the wrong information they present at times.  The first issue resides in the health screenings of these ancestry tests.  They claim to use your ancestry to see if you are at risk for Alzheimers, certain types of cancer, Parkinson’s, or what type of body type you have.  These companies are not completely lying, however the tests can omit certain things and it is no substitute for going to an actual doctor.

Everything they search for is compared to a reference population, therefore your genes are merely compared to other people who are considered healthy or unhealthy.  These tests do not have access to medical history in order to look for other clinical factors that could accelerate or further exacerbate this potential condition, thus explaining why it is irresponsible to tell people they are at risk for a debilitating disease because someone with similar genetics reported developing a disease that could have resulted from his or her specific lifestyle.

The issue with self-reporting in ancestry tests also can be seen in testing for heritage.  The data these companies use are based off of reference populations (many of which are self-reported especially in the early years of the tests), therefore the same person can receive different results at different times.  The database is constantly changing (which isn’t necessarily only a bad thing) so if the same person takes the test three times in three different years, they are likely to get different results.  If the company recently expands to selling DNA kits in a new area of the world, a person with mixed heritage from the United States can receive different results because the test population of a certain region was extremely small and unspecific before, whereas now they have more of a test population that can change “how Vietnamese you are” (or whatever region that applies to you).

Have you ever known someone who took the DNA test and found out they were not as Greek or Russian (insert anything) as they thought they were? These results are problematic on so many levels when breaking down ancestry.  The first example is that when comparing extremely similar populations, your heritage might not reflect your ancestry that the test finds.  For example: modern English, Scottish, and Irish people have vastly similar results in these tests because they are very similar genetically and geographically, therefore a person can find out they are 50/50 Irish and English, however all of their known relatives can be traced back to 1870s Ireland.  The person is not “less Irish than they thought”; it merely means that centuries of migration and conquering in the region of the British Isles could blend the gene pools even if this person’s family tree of the last two-hundred years can be traced back to one specific town.

Something else important to consider is that ancestry and heritage are not nearly synonymous terms.  Furthermore, two twins could receive different genes from the same parents which could lead to slight changes in genetic makeup.  Your sibling is not “more Swedish than you” in terms of heritage and the culture you were raised in.  The sibling might receive a certain gene from your parents that you did not.

While there are a myriad of problems and hypotheticals to bring up, I will leave you with one last problem. Groups of people that live in diaspora such as Jews, Romani, and Armenians could have problems with these tests.  Ashkenazi Jews from Eastern Europe live in diaspora and have been a migratory group for centuries, leading them to mix in with various gene pools that they settle in.  When an Ashkenazi Jew or Romani (who similarly lived a migratory history) takes an ancestry test, they could feel completely related to their Ashkenazi or Romani heritage, however the intermixing of people over centuries (because they settled in so many places) could come up in the test even though they feel like they have no relationship to the heritage at all.  Romani people also are difficult to pinpoint to one specific region of origin which demonstrates another potential problem with the tests.

While these tests can be a fun activity to do with your friends, make sure you take the results with a grain of salt because you are not necessarily  “less French than you thought”.

 

CAP v.s. HAP: Pneumonia in the Microbiome

By

On November 15, 2019

In Student Post

While many may not know this, there are various types of pneumonia.  The most common variant, CAP (community-acquired pneumonia), is the most prevalent strain of the infectious disease.  As the name may suggest, CAP is acquired through daily interactions (whether that may be contact or inhalation of pathogens which could later travel to the lungs) with any surface that has bacteria such as Streptococcus pneumoniae and Haemophilus influenzae.

While pneumonia is a well-known infectious disease among the population in 2019 due to the plethora of literature and research done on it, most people do not know that other variants of pneumonia are contracted in different ways, through different strands of bacteria.  HAP (hospital-acquired pneumonia or healthcare-associated pneumonia) can be contracted from extended periods of time in a hospital, nursing home, or rehabilitation center.  This pneumonia variant is a result of the P. aeruginosa and Staphylococcus aureus bacteria, which are completely different from the bacteria that cause CAP.

The demographics of people who suffer from each of these variants appear to be mostly similar with the only difference being that CAP has a stronger association with COPD whereas HAP still has an association with COPD, but in a smaller portion of the demographic.  Similarities between the two are the increased risk if one uses tobacco products or suffers from COPD, however, aside from these shared risk factors, the two variants are different in treatment methods (effectiveness of certain antibiotics) and contraction.

Relative to the microbiome, the major differences in the diseases can be found when testing biomarkers.  According to Ann Transl and Thomas Tschernig of the “Annals of Translational Medicine”, “lower levels in HAP as compared to CAP were found for MMP-8 and soluble E-selection, higher levels in HAP as compared to CAP were found for protein C”.

The significance of this discovery lies in the fact that the different variants of pneumonia could not be prevented, diagnosed, or treated in the same ways, thus exemplifying the dangers that would arise if the different variants were not classified and identified.

Additional resources.

 

 

How Deforestation and Amazonian Fires Could Impact Indigenous People

By

On October 26, 2019

In Student Post

 

Believe it or not, in 2019 there are still uncontacted(or at least minimally-contacted) tribes living in the Amazon and in Papua New Guinea and isolated islands in Indonesia.  These indigenous people to the region have been living in the Amazonian parts of Brazil, Peru, Venezuela,

and Colombia for centuries and remained almost completely uncontacted or minimally-contacted despite the rapid industrialization and deforestation of the surrounding areas.  Not only does illegal logging and mining harm the environment and strip ecosystems of their resources, but it also poses an anthropological threat where these indigenous people are losing places to live, in turn threatening their isolated way of life.  

Despite the fact that an overwhelming majority of Brazilians support indigenous rights and their protection, the issue remains unsolved due to the selfish nature of the illegal loggers and miners.

If the threats of logging and mining were not enough to the ecosystem of the Amazon, the wildfires have stripped away a substantial amount of the environment as well.  The fear of anthropologists and doctors is that these uncontacted tribes have no immunity to diseases outside of their communities. The threat could be mass disease and infection that the indigenous people would have no way of handling.  In addition, specific tribes have been hostile towards outsiders and they would struggle to assimilate into civilian life if they should even decide to do so.  

This issue is where anthropology and ecology collide, thus showing the duality and significance of the issue.

 

Archives

Powered by WordPress & Theme by Anders Norén

Skip to toolbar