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The company has been around for more than a decade, but said its new report on diabetes was the first of its kind.
It was developed with the help of data from 2.5 million users of his project having accepted the research. Previous reports relied on information from publicly available data sets, as well as on 23andMe's own database.
With this report to be released soon, the company could attract millions of users more and more of the 8 million it already has.
More than 30 million Americans, or about 9% of the population, have diabetes. Studies show that only 23 million of them have been diagnosed and the rest are aware that they have the disease. Most people with diabetes have type 2, which means that they do not respond to insulin as they should. (People with type 1 diabetes do not produce insulin and tend to be diagnosed earlier.)
Diabetes rates are expected to increase over the next few decades for various factors, including the obesity epidemic.
"Diabetes is a major health problem in the United States that is expected to affect nearly half of the population," said Anne Wojcicki, CEO of 23andMe, in a statement.
23andMe, which has been co-founded by Wojcicki, is backed by just over $ 800 million in venture capital from investors ranging from Alphabet to the international drug maker. GlaxoSmithKline. He has sold his ancestry and health DNA tests to millions of people, but he has other ways to make money, including partnerships with pharmaceutical companies. It also has its own drug discovery unit headed by veteran pharma Richard Scheller.
The company has had a lot of controversy since it was founded in 2006. It has recovered from a crisis with the US Food and Drug Administration, which sentenced it in 2013 to stop selling and marketing its tests. to be the target of the New York Times Editorial Board. The board was particularly worried that users would feel too reassured by their 23andMe results. He was also involved in privacy debates, which escalated when the Golden Killer was captured after law enforcement had seized his relatives' data on his family. a free access website on DNA.
For this reason, the development of his report on diabetes was a complicated process for society. Numerous reminders reminded her that lifestyle plays a major role and that 23andMe did not replace a doctor.
In addition, screening for the risk of diabetes is not as simple as some other diseases, in which a single genetic variant can have a major impact. On the contrary, there are many small variations across the human genome that increase the risk in some people compared to others. And lifestyle factors, such as diet and exercise, play a huge role. To avoid giving the impression that users do not have to take care of their health, what they should do anyway, there is no result "reduced risk" for diabetes.
In the end, 23andMe said he hoped that users would be encouraged to make behavioral changes. And he has a partnership with an AI health coaching tool called Lark to help those who want more information.
However, digital tools are struggling to change their lifestyle in the long term, so doctors are wondering if the new report will be useful.
"Since there is no single gene, but rather many genes that interact with environmental and lifestyle factors, I wonder if this test will be better for physicians than simply looking at family history or the family tree of a patient, "said Aaron Neinstein, endocrinologist at UC San. Francisco, who treats patients with diabetes. "You can often say the risk of a person simply by seeing this."
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