Some of the dos and don’t of your annual office holiday party should be kind of obvious – don’t hit on your boss and maybe take it easy on the spiked punch – but knowing how your DNA influences how your body responds to alcohol or sweets might help you navigate the pitfalls of this year’s celebrations.
Your genetics influences how you metabolize alcohol, your preference for salty or sweet snacks, and whether your <a href="https://www.23andme.com/topics/wellness/alcohol-flush-reaction">face reddens</a> when you have a little alcohol.
“Lost in the merriment of holiday festivities is how our environment and the decisions we’re making are influenced by our genetics – and the consequence those decisions may have,” said Jeffrey Pollard, and MD and 23andMe’s director of medical affairs. “Most things we eat and drink can be enjoyed in moderation without having a harmful effect as long as you don’t overdo it.”
This year 23andMe dissected how your genetics may influences the ways your body may react to some of the choices you make at this year’s holiday office party.
Enjoy and season’s greetings. 
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-24897" src="https://blog-api.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/Holiday-Season-Survival-Guide-v1_US_hi-res-4.jpg" alt="holiday-season-survival-guide-v1_us_hi-res" width="1000" height="2994" />
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23andMe Blog

23andMe Blog Team

Holiday Party Genetics

When managing your own health, it helps to know your history, or more specifically your family health history.<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignright wp-image-18560 size-medium" src="https://blog-api.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/RN4_9658-300x199.jpg" width="300" height="199" />


You don’t just inherit your good looks from your parents or those who came before you. Sometimes, serious health conditions are passed down through the generations. Both common and rare diseases often run in families, sometimes skipping a generation or two. It helps to document some of the diseases faced by relatives in your family tree, so you can understand your own health risks.


While most people know that this information can be critical to their health, many people either do not know or have never tried to document this information. A little more than a decade ago, the U.S. Surgeon General kicked off an effort to change that by instituting <a href="http://www.hhs.gov/programs/prevention-and-wellness/family-health-history/about-family-health-history/index.html">National Family History Day</a>.
Because Thanksgiving is such a family-centric holiday, each year since 2004, the national holiday has doubled as a day not just to eat turkey and pie, but to talk to family and attempt to document health history.
To make it easier for families, the surgeon general even set up a simple and sharable tool for families to document their own health history called My Family Health Portrait. It allows you and your family members to create a family tree, write down health conditions and together create a powerful document to help you all manage your health.

Know Your Family Health History

Like many of the world’s most vexing health problems, the simplest of strategies could go a long way in combating the scourge <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignright size-full wp-image-24535" src="https://blog-api.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/idf__wdd-logo-new.png" alt="idf__wdd-logo-new" width="290" height="123" />of Type 2 diabetes.


As World Diabetes Day fast approaches, we thought we’d take a moment to bring a little more awareness to this chronic disease that affects more than 400 million people worldwide. Genetics, family history and age all contribute to the risk for Type 2 diabetes. But many cases could be prevented or the symptoms lessened with simple lifestyle changes.
<h6>
International Diabetes Foundation</h6>
Becoming more active, losing weight and eating healthy can help reduce the risk in most individuals, according to the International Diabetes Foundation. Early screening for the disease could also help in staving off some of the most serious consequences of this chronic disease. This is because up to half of those who have type 2 diabetes don’t know they have it. Left undetected, it could lead to serious complications like blindness, kidney failure, cardiovascular disease and amputation of the lower limbs.


23andMe does not report on the risk for diabetes, but it does offer customers a report on how their genetics may influence how food high in saturated fat affects their weight. For some individuals, a diet high in saturated fat may make them more likely to weigh more. Knowing this may be helpful for those people tracking their response to diet. In addition, maintaining a healthy weight is one way to reduce the risk for condition diabetes and other conditions like heart disease.
Being overweight is a primary risk factor for Type 2 diabetes, but you don’t have to be overweight to develop the condition.
<h6>More on Diabetes</h6>
There are two forms of diabetes – Type 1 and Type 2. Both forms of the disease relate to insulin, a hormone that regulates blood sugar.
In Type 1 diabetes, the body doesn’t produce enough insulin. It typically develops in childhood, and patients must take injections to produce the insulin they need to survive. In Type 2, which is by far the most common form of the disease and develops most often in adults, the body is unable to efficiently use the insulin it produces. Diet can play a role in Type 2 diabetes because in some cases the more fat tissue a person has, the more resistant their cells become to insulin.
To learn more about diabetes and World Diabetes Day go here.

World Diabetes Day

In the latest in a series of studies by researchers looking at the impact of direct-to-consumer <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignright size-medium wp-image-24308" src="https://blog-api.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/computer-survey-300x243.jpg" alt="computer-survey" width="300" height="243" />genetic testing, investigators found that people’s perception of risk was changed much more by a genetic test that showed a decreased risk versus one that reported an increased risk.
“You see a much bigger change for good news than bad news,”<a href="http://news.mit.edu/2016/good-personal-genomic-data-makes-bigger-impact-0908"> said Joshua Krieger</a>, a doctoral candidate at MIT and one of the lead authors of the study.
These<a href="https://www.nature.com/nbt/journal/v34/n9/full/nbt.3661.html"> latest findings</a> are part of ongoing collaborative research by scientists at MIT, the Broad Institute, Harvard Medical School Brigham, Women’s Hospital and 23andMe, to gauge how genetic testing affects consumers. In this study, called the<a href="http://www.genomes2people.org/pgen/"> Impact of Personal Genomics</a>, or the PGen study, researchers are looking not just at how testing changes people’s perception of risk, but whether testing triggers undue stress, or leads people to flock to their doctors and burden the healthcare system.


In the past, criticism of direct-to-consumer genetic testing included speculation that it would result in undue stress for consumers, and a “raiding of the medical commons.”
This study found no evidence to support either of those concerns – people did not burden their doctors with visits after getting their results, and they didn’t appear to overreact to those results either. But, a positive test result had a greater impact on risk perception than a negative one.
“There is an optimism bias, in that people want to believe good news,” said Krieger.


Indeed, the impact of positive news was about twice as strong as that of negative news, according to the study.
While researchers could only speculate about why there was a difference in the impact of good versus bad news – or a reported decrease in risk versus an increase – they also noted that when there was a large change in perceived risk based on the genetic test a consumer was much more likely to seek medical advice.


“Though we found good news-bad news asymmetry in risk perception changes, these changes appeared to be moderate and congruent with test results,” the study said. “Taken together, our results suggest that DTC consumers learn from their (genetic test) results and update their beliefs, but they primarily seek additional medical actions after they receive news of large and unexpected risks.”


While this work is important for ongoing efforts to improve how test results are reported out to consumers, it is based on 23andMe reports that are no longer offered to consumers.  After an extensive and ongoing regulatory process with the FDA, 23andMe has changed the type of health information it reports to its customers. Extensive user comprehension testing, and its own research into how consumers absorb and understand the information informs 23andMe’s new health reports.
But for this study, scientists drew data from about 617 23andMe customers who enrolled in the research study before those regulatory changes were made. Researchers surveyed those customers before they received their results and again six months after they received them. While there was neither “excessive overreaction nor complete disregard of the test results,” there was indeed a difference in how certain results impacted consumers’ perception of risk.
“This research expands our understanding of how the consumers of personal genomics may react to what they perceive as elevated or diminished risk, and reminds us that perceptions are not always logical,” said Robert C. Green, a medical geneticist at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School and the principal investigator for the PGen study.

The impact of genetic testing on perceived risk of cancer

Your genetics, whether your partner suffers from chronic pain and the environment you share with your partner, all contribute to your <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignright size-medium wp-image-24219" src="https://blog-api.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/DNA-strand-129x300.jpg" alt="10192015_Icons_Set1_Working.ai" width="129" height="300" srcset="https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/DNA-strand-129x300.jpg 129w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/DNA-strand-442x1024.jpg 442w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/DNA-strand-380x880.jpg 380w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/DNA-strand.jpg 500w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 129px) 100vw, 129px" />own risk for having the condition, according to a new study into the complex mix of environmental and genetic factors that influence both the risk for chronic pain and for depression.


Scientists at the University of Edinburgh also <a href="http://journals.plos.org/plosmedicine/article?id=10.1371/journal.pmed.1002090">found</a> that the two conditions share some of the same environmental and genetic associations.


&#8220;We hope our research will encourage people to think about the relationship between chronic pain and depression and whether physical and mental illnesses are as separate as some believe,&#8221; study author Andrew McIntosh said in a University of Edinburgh news release.

<h6>Separate Studies</h6>

Published in PLOS Medicine, the study relied on data from Generation Scotland, a Scottish Family Health History study, as well as data from the <a href="http://www.ukbiobank.ac.uk/about-biobank-uk/">UK Biobank</a>.
In a separate study, researchers from 23andMe, Massachusetts General Hospital and Pfizer conducted genome wide association studies using data from 23andMe customers, who consented to participate in research.
They found that chronic pain could arise through the combined effect of many genetic factors. They also found that the risk for chronic pain is heightened if there is also a genetic risk for depression.


All of this is of interest because health researchers have seen that chronic pain and depression often go hand-in-hand.
<h6>A Link With Depression</h6>
While some of the links between the two conditions are quite evident – for example, dealing with a painful and debilitating injury can take a toll on even the most resilient individuals and their partners. But independent of those issues this study found that other factors are also at play.


“Chronic pain is caused by an accumulation of many small genetic effects and is associated with some of the same genetic and environmental risk factors that confer risk of depression,” according to the researchers, adding that “both genetic factors and chronic pain in a partner or spouse contribute to the risk of chronic pain for an individual.”


By identifying those shared contributions, researchers said they hoped it would help in the search for new approaches for treating depression and chronic pain.
The study can be found in the <a href="http://journals.plos.org/plosmedicine/article?id=10.1371/journal.pmed.1002090" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">PLoS Genetics.</a>

Genetics found to influence risk of chronic pain and depression

A little farmyard dust might the difference in bolstering against asthma and allergies, <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignright wp-image-1282 size-medium" src="http://35.88.189.111/wp-content/uploads/2008/09/amish-300x223.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="223" srcset="https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/09/amish-300x223.jpg 300w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/09/amish.jpg 350w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" />according to a study published in the<a href="http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa1508749#t=articleDiscussion"> New England Journal of Medicine.</a>
Although the study was very small, it lends some additional evidence to the so-called “<a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2841828/">hygiene hypothesis</a>.” That theory suggests that the surge in allergies and asthma among modern children may have something to do with the increasingly sanitized environments in which they live.
It’s important to note, however, that the development of asthma and allergies is complicated. It involves many factors both environmental and<a href="https://blog.23andme.com/23andme-research/new-genetic-associations-found-for-allergies-and-asthma/"> genetic</a>. Asthma and allergies, which are strongly linked to each other, are among the most common diseases in the industrialized world.
<h6>Genes and Environment</h6>
23andMe has done several studies looking specifically at the<a href="http://www.jacionline.org/article/S0091-6749%2813%2901643-6/abstract"> genetic associations</a> around allergies and asthma. But researchers have spent several years trying to unravel the cause of the surge in these conditions. This is just the latest study that has pointed to the hyper-clean environment among modern societies that might offer some explanation.
A<a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26339029"> similar study</a> done last year, by researchers in Belgium, looked at allergies among children who grew up on European dairy farms.
This new study, done by researchers at the University of Chicago, focused on differences in asthma and allergy rates among the Amish and Hutterite farming families. Although the two Christian sects are similar in their isolation and ethnicities, their farming practices are distinct. The Hutterites embrace modern agricultural technics. The Amish decidedly old-school with most everything done by hand and plows pulled by animals.
“Our study in a small number of children was sufficient to show significant differences in the prevalence of asthma and in immune profiles,&#8221; the researchers said in the paper. &#8220;(This) suggesting that very strong environmental factors must account for these differences.”
<h6>Dust</h6>
The “very strong environmental” differences referred to in the study was the high level of bacteria in the dust in Amish family environs. The researchers looked at both the content of that dust – even taking samples and exposing mice to the dust – and they also looked at blood samples from children in both groups.
What they found was evidence that the constant low-grade exposure to microbes in the dust, appeared to boost the Amish children immune response. Those children had higher levels neutrophils, a type of white blood cell involved in the body’s innate immune response. They also showed signs of other proteins involved in the body’s inflammatory response.
Some of these findings may help research into treatments or other therapies for asthma and allergies.

Dirt Don’t Hurt

There’s a time when all of us settle down, but Robert isn’t there quite yet.<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignright size-medium wp-image-23983" src="https://blog-api.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/RoberW-300x300.jpg" alt="RoberW" width="300" height="300" srcset="https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/RoberW-300x300.jpg 300w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/RoberW-150x150.jpg 150w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/RoberW-768x768.jpg 768w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/RoberW-880x880.jpg 880w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/RoberW-271x271.jpg 271w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/RoberW-372x372.jpg 372w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/RoberW-574x574.jpg 574w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/RoberW-980x980.jpg 980w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/RoberW.jpg 1000w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" />


He’s 29, single and has a good job as an architect. He’s in no rush, but all the same that hasn’t stopped him from at least thinking about his future and what comes next. In part that’s why he tested with 23andMe.
“I was interested in learning more about my ancestry, especially within Europe,” said Robert, who lives in Maryland. “I was also interested in learning any health information that could help me plan my life better, especially since I’m at an age when having a family is on the horizon.”


His results revealed a few surprises about his ancestry, but it was the health information that he viewed as invaluable not just for his future, but also to explain something about his sister, who he said was born profoundly deaf. His test showed that Robert is a carrier for an inherited form of hearing loss.


“The cause was unknown but genetic hearing loss was always low on our list of possible reasons because no one else in our family is deaf,” Robert said. “They assumed it was not genetic, so it was always a mystery.”


The family speculated that perhaps her deafness was caused by a fever during infancy, or something his mother may have been exposed to or even his father being in areas that were sprayed with Agent Orange during the Vietnam War. The family didn’t know so they were left to speculate about what caused Robert’s sister to be deaf.
But Robert believes his 23andMe results may offer a plausible explanation. His test revealed that he is a carrier for GJB2-related nonsyndromic hearing loss and deafness, DFNB1, an inherited form of hearing loss.*
To be affected a person must have two variants in the GJB2 gene, but Robert inherited just one copy, meaning he is only a carrier.
Because the condition is nonsyndromic  – meaning it lacks other symptoms – detecting it at birth in the past was exceedingly difficult.  Recent advances in universal newborn hearing screening, however, have made this and other forms of congenital deafness easier to detect. When Robert’s sister was born the family didn’t have access to those tests.<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignright size-medium wp-image-23811" src="https://blog-api.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/Inheritance-300x266.jpg" alt="Inheritance" width="300" height="266" srcset="https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/Inheritance-300x266.jpg 300w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/Inheritance.jpg 697w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" />


“Finding out that I am a carrier may shed some light on my sister&#8217;s condition,” Robert said.


But since she hasn’t had a genetic test for the condition, he can only assume his sister may have gotten two copies, one from each of their parents.
For Robert, his results are important, he said. If, or when, he decides to have a family, knowing that he’s a carrier is something he’d want to share with his partner. That kind of knowledge is power, but Robert understands not everyone would feel the same way. Not everyone would want to know.


“Everyone is different in the way they handle that sort of news,” he said.


Robert also said that it makes a lot of sense to talk to his doctor or medical professional at some point about the results and how to best use what he’s learned.
Still he feels better knowing.
“I am glad I received this information,” Robert said. “The results were a little sobering at first, but I think it will help me plan for a better life in the long run.”


*23andMe&#8217;s carrier status tests can be used to determine carrier status in adults from saliva collected using an FDA-cleared collection device (Oragene ·DX model OGD-500.001), but cannot determine if you have two copies of the genetic variant. Each test is most relevant for people of certain ethnicities. The tests are not intended to diagnose a disease, or tell you anything about your risk for developing a disease in the future. On their own, carrier status tests are not intended to tell you anything about the health of your fetus, or your newborn child’s risk of developing a particular disease later in life.  The Nonsyndromic Hearing Loss and Deafness DFNB1 (GJB2-related) carrier status test is indicated for the detection of 2 variants in the GJB2 gene and is most relevant for people of Ashkenazi Jewish and European descent.

Planning Ahead

Researchers know that certain genes, or more accurately regions in our genes, are <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignright size-medium wp-image-23879" src="https://blog-api.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/traits-300x149.jpg" alt="traits" width="300" height="149" />multitaskers, influencing a wide variety of traits and conditions that range from such things as the size of our noses to our susceptibility to childhood ear infections to our risk for Parkinson’s disease.


A new study led by researchers at the <a href="https://www.nygenome.org/">New York Genome Center</a> and 23andMe analyzed 42 different traits and identified more than 300 locations in the genome that influence multiple traits and conditions. The study, <a href="https://dx.doi.org/10.1038/ng.3570" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">published in Nature Genetics</a>, was supported through a grant from the National Institutes of Health.
It’s not news that a single genetic variant may influence multiple traits and conditions. There’s even a name for this in genetics: pleiotropy. But <a href="http://www.the-scientist.com/?articles.view/articleNo/46094/title/Genetic-Connections-Among-Human-Traits/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">this research</a> took that one step further going beyond the mere correlation and developing a method to identify the biological relationships between traits to show causal connections.
“While genomic studies have been successful in identifying genetic variants that influence disease risk, it’s important to understand the impact of genetic variants across many diseases,&#8221; said <a href="https://jkplab.org/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Joseph Pickrell</a>, PhD, the lead author of the study and an assistant investigator at New York Genome Institute.
Pickerll is also an Adjunct Assistant Professor in the Department of Biological Sciences at Columbia University.
He said genetic variants may be influence many different conditions in different ways.


&#8220;For example, if a genetic variant decreases risk of schizophrenia but increases risk of Parkinson’s disease, drugs that target this gene may have unintended consequences,&#8221; Pickrell said.


Excluding so-called “trivial” correlations, the researchers identified several different clusters, some of which showed causal relationships. This causal relationship might be direct, so for example a single genetic variant might influence many different traits or conditions, or a variant might influence one trait or condition and that in turn leads to another trait or condition.
Researchers in this study found that variants known to influence puberty also influence height, male pattern baldness and BMI, which are all related to hormonal regulation. Another cluster was found around metabolic conditions such as coronary artery disease, red blood cell traits and lipid levels. And researchers also noted clustering around immune response with conditions like asthma, allergies, Crohn’s disease, rheumatoid arthritis and infectious diseases like childhood ear infections and tonsillitis clustering together.


The researchers say their study validates the use of genome wide association studies to find variants that influence many different traits. In turn identifying them may also help to highlight true causal relationships by bringing into sharp relief the biology behind certain conditions. Although the researchers say they have only identified a modest number of variants that causally influence multiple traits and conditions, they suggest that a larger study would uncover many more.
Finally this study also highlights the value of the mix of data 23andMe customers share for research, which includes not just genotypic data from detailed phenotypic information.
This allowed 23andMe to contribute to this study by including information from more than 300,000 customers who consented to research.
This is valuable information for researchers who can tap into a wide range of phenotypes as varied as allergies and asthma or the timing of puberty or whether they have chin dimples or had a lot of ear infections as a child. It’s this kind of rich data that can lead to unexpected insights that 23andMe is uniquely able provide scientists.


“This study illustrates the value of collecting not just genotypic data but a wide variety of phenotypic data, something that 23andMe is uniquely able to do,” said co-author David Hinds, PhD,  principal scientist, statistical genetics at 23andMe.  “The ability to study this type of rich phenotypic and genotypic data at scale makes it possible to uncover unexpected insights.”


The study appears in the journal <a href="https://www.nature.com/ng/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/ng.3570.html#access" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Nature Genetics</a>.

Genetic variants found to influence multiple traits and conditions

By Erynn Gordon, MS, LCGC 
23andMe&#8217;s Director of Clinical Development<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignright size-medium wp-image-23750" src="https://blog-api.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Erynn2-cropped-b_w-1-300x266.jpg" alt="Erynn2 cropped (b_w)-1" width="300" height="266" srcset="https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Erynn2-cropped-b_w-1-300x266.jpg 300w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Erynn2-cropped-b_w-1-768x680.jpg 768w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Erynn2-cropped-b_w-1-1024x907.jpg 1024w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Erynn2-cropped-b_w-1-880x779.jpg 880w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Erynn2-cropped-b_w-1-1180x1045.jpg 1180w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Erynn2-cropped-b_w-1.jpg 2040w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" />
Testing in pregnancy can be a little overwhelming for prospective parents – blood tests, glucose challenge, ultrasounds, and fetal nonstress tests. Many of these tests are offered with little explanation but rather the expectation that you’ll proceed for your baby&#8217;s health.
But as a genetic counselor and a mother, I know that all these tests can be overwhelming. One particular type of testing that warrants more attention before pregnancy is carrier status testing for genetically inherited conditions.
I’m a big proponent of genetic testing, and I think the best time to be tested is before a pregnancy. Genetic testing pre-pregnancy allows a couple to learn about their carrier status; if they are carriers, they have the luxury of learning about the disease risk and discussing it with their healthcare provider. 
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignright wp-image-23668 size-medium" src="https://blog-api.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Robin-B-1-300x239.jpg" alt="Carrier Status Variants" width="300" height="239" srcset="https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Robin-B-1-300x239.jpg 300w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Robin-B-1-768x612.jpg 768w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Robin-B-1-1024x816.jpg 1024w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Robin-B-1-880x701.jpg 880w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Robin-B-1.jpg 1137w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" />
<h2>What Are Carrier Screening Tests?</h2>
Carrier status tests are genetic tests used to determine if you carry a genetic change – or variant. For the conditions included in a carrier status test, having one genetic change – being a carrier – typically doesn’t mean you will have that condition. Still, you could pass on the variant to your child.
For autosomal recessive disorders, the types of conditions that healthcare providers are looking for when they do a carrier status test, it is only when both parents are carriers for the same condition that the child has a 1 in 4, or 25 percent, chance to be affected with the condition. (It’s important to note that this also means they have a 75 percent chance that their child will not be affected.) Autosomal recessive conditions for which carrier testing is commonly offered by healthcare providers include cystic fibrosis, Tay Sachs disease, and <a href="https://www.23andme.com/topics/carrier/sickle-cell-anemia">sickle cell anemia</a>, among many others.
<h2>What Can You Do if Both You and Your Partner Are Carriers?</h2>
If you and your partner are carriers, you should speak to your doctor or healthcare professional to understand your options fully.
Women interested in carrier testing can talk to their gynecologist or obstetrician to learn about available options. Usually, carrier testing is offered based on a woman’s ethnic background.
For example, women of African descent may be offered <a href="https://www.23andme.com/topics/carrier/">carrier status</a> testing for sickle cell anemia.
Women of European descent may be offered testing for cystic fibrosis.  Standard carrier status testing recommendations are based on the most common disorders in each population.  Historically, these targeted tests made sense because of the high cost of genetic testing. But now, because of the dropping cost of genetic testing, it is feasible to test for genetic conditions more broadly.  This broader approach means that even women who do not have much information on their ancestry but want to have carrier status testing done are no longer limited based on knowledge of their family background.
Broad-based carrier testing, sometimes called pan-ethnic carrier testing, is available through traditional healthcare providers and direct-to-consumer.
<a href="https://www.23andme.com/dna-health-ancestry">Direct-to-consumer genetic tests</a>, such as the carrier status test offered by <a href="https://www.23andme.com/carrierstatus-fda/">23andMe</a>* can provide valuable insights that can help start the conversation with your healthcare provider about appropriate genetic screening. At this time, no genetic test covers every possible risk to your future children so whether you choose direct-to-consumer testing or you have testing through your healthcare provider, be sure to ask about the limitations of the test so that you understand what the test can tell you and what it can’t.
Have more questions? Consider talking with a genetic counselor.  You can find a local genetic counselor through the <a href="http://www.nsgc.org/">National Society of Genetic Counselors</a>.
<h6>Disclaimer</h6>
<div style="float: center; text-align: justified; width: 600px; background-color: #ffffcc; padding: 15px; margin-left: 10px;">* 23andMe tests can determine adult carrier status from saliva collected using an FDA-cleared collection device (Oragene-DX model OGD-500.001). Still, they cannot determine if you have two copies of the genetic variant. Each test is most relevant for people of certain ethnicities. The tests are not intended to diagnose a disease or tell you anything about your risk of developing a disease in the future. On their own, carrier status tests are not intended to tell you anything about the health of your fetus or your newborn child’s risk of developing a particular disease later in life. The Cystic Fibrosis carrier status test is indicated for detecting 28 variants in the CFTR gene and is most relevant for people of Ashkenazi Jewish, European, and Hispanic/Latino descent. The <a href="https://www.23andme.com/topics/carrier/tay-sachs-disease">Tay-Sachs Disease</a> carrier status test is indicated for detecting 4 variants in the HEXA gene and is most relevant for people of Ashkenazi Jewish and Cajun descent. The Sickle Cell Anemia, carrier status test, is indicated for detecting the HbS variant in the HBB gene and is most relevant for people of African descent. </div>

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