APOE4 Retest

[Rubrobben]

Hi Everyone,

I am new to this wonderful site and have soooooo many questions!
First and foremost... I received my APOE4 (2 copies) from 23andMe in June of 2018. Since then I’ve been doing as much research as I can. Started on the Mind Diet and now looking into the ReCODE protocol. (Yikes! Having a hard time thinking of anything else!)
My question for now is whether or not I should retest the results using another service before I do anything else?

Thanks for being here!

Bobbie

[Plumster]

Welcome, Bobbie!

I think I'd only retest if I suspected it might be wrong -- if I had no family history of Alzheimer's, for example.

[TheresaB]

My question for now is whether or not I should retest the results using another service before I do anything else?

I think the only one who can answer the question of retesting or not is you, if there’s something in the back of your head that says you need to retest, then you probably need to retest.

With that said, following diet/lifestyle recommendations for ApoE4 will benefit anyone. The recommendations we follow reduce inflammation (I don’t know of any genetic SNPs that are protective from autoimmune diseases) and inflammation also appears to be the root cause of cardiovascular disease; it will reduce insulin resistance/increase insulin sensitivity, the root cause of most if not all chronic diseases; it will enhance mitochondrial function essential for good health and probably reduces the possibility of cancer, when I read Dr Nasha Winters/Jess Higgins Kelley’s book The Metabolic approach to Cancer, I was struck by how much overlap there was to Dr Bredesen’s book The End of Alzheimer’s.

FYI, I am a 4/4, with no history of Alzheimer’s in my family except for a grandmother who developed dementia while in her 90’s.

If you decide to let the 4s be with you and want to know where to start, I'd recommend reading our Primer it's filled with great information. I admire your initiative to start on the MIND diet and looking into the ReCode Protocol, but as you can see from the protocol, there's more than just diet involved. We also have a Wiki that provides a deeper dive into certain subjects, and to help you, one of the Wiki subjects is How to Get the most out of the ApoE4.info website

Latstly, if you retest and you're not a 4/4, feel free to stay with us, we don't discriminate against our non-ApoE4 brethren.

[NF52]

Hi Everyone, I am new to this wonderful site and have soooooo many questions!
First and foremost... I received my APOE4 (2 copies) from 23andMe in June of 2018. Since then I’ve been doing as much research as I can. Started on the Mind Diet and now looking into the ReCODE protocol. (Yikes! Having a hard time thinking of anything else!) My question for now is whether or not I should retest the results using another service before I do anything else? Thanks for being here! Bobbie

A warm welcome Bobbie, from a "sister" 4/4 who is 66 years old. I'm taking the liberty of migrating over the wonderful introduction you posted on the Welcome forum of Getting Started on August 10. Apologies that we seemed to miss your opening day!

Hello everyone! I am new and very excited to learn and participate.
My name is Bobbie and I’m 67 years old. Just found out a couple of months ago that I have two copies of APOE4. I don’t think I have any cognitive issues right now but have not been tested other than the ‘Wellness visit’ questions given to me at my yearly physical.
I’ve switched to the MIND diet completely but have recently heard about RECODE protocol and now I’m totally confused on what to eat and a few other items. Regarding the food; the mind diet recommends whole grains and they include wheat but the other protocol does not. The ReCODE speaks about hormone therapy but am post breast cancer six years and I cannot use HRT and I’m taking estrogen inhibitors for another four years.
This is all so overwhelming at times.
Other info...
BMI is 21 and waist is 26 inches.
I walk a lot and do some circuit training a couple times a week.
I am petrified of Alzheimer’s disease... I truly would rather check out of this wonderful world then put my family through this.
Thank you so much for being there. Bobbie

I and many others here of a similar age (and older) have been where you are, a few months after getting this news, and wondering "what now?" The good news that I think everyone here believes, is that genes are not destiny. The best current estimates are that women with ApoE 4/4 who are currently 60-75 have a wide range of possible risk of EITHER mild cognitive impairment or dementia by age 85--probably somewhere between 30-60%. That means that 40-70% of people our age will NEVER develop MCI or dementia. And with your current diet, exercise, healthy BMI, and obvious intellectual curiosity, you are well-positioned to be proof to others that many factors affect how our genes express themselves. Currently, some studies suggest that up to 30% of people who die at a late age of other causes, with no cognitive symptoms, are "resilient" to the effects of amyloid, tau, and other causes of impaired functioning due to protective factors and the effects of other genes and our environment.

As for doing a re-test with another company, here's a lengthy explanation from 23&me of the test reliability (scroll through to p.14 to get ApoE 4 info) which claims 99% confirmation by other tests. https://permalinks.23andme.com/pdf/PN-20-0234.pdfIf If you want a free test confirmation, you could sign up with Gene Match. They won't send you the results directly, but if you have either an ApoE 3/4, 2/4 or 4/4 profile, you may hear from clinical study coordinators that could give you information about ways in which you may be able to contribute to studies of prevention in healthy volunteers.

I hope you find support, suggestions, and a place where it's safe to ask any question and express any emotion. And I hope most of all, that you continue to feel that it's a wonderful world that needs you in it!

[Rubrobben]

Thank you all for getting back to me (especially NF52 for finding my first email )
I think I will download the data and send to Prometheus for $10 and analyze the data rather then retesting. I have two older sisters; one with two copies like me and the other with one. We all also have the Parkinson’s gene...Lrrk2, and my oldest sister has been diagnosed with it for about two years.
I’m pretty confident that the test was accurate although neither of my parents had Alzheimer’s but they died at 74 and 79 so who knows?
I’ve got an appointment tomorrow with my internist to let her know what’s going on..

I’m so grateful for your feedback and all the information that’s available on this site. This is absolutely a godsend.

Bobbie

[Julie G]

Welcome, Bobbie... and thanks for the Star Wars themed chuckle, Theresa.

If you decide to let the 4s be with you...

LOL, may the "4s" be with us all

[Tincup]

I think I will download the data and send to Prometheus for $10 and analyze the data rather then retesting. I have two older sisters; one with two copies like me and the other with one.
Bobbie

Bobbie, Promethease will give you a lot more info than the 23andMe report. However, if you want to look at the ApoE4 part yourself, you can download the raw 23andMe data (a text file) and look at the two SNP's yourself. SNPedia has a table.

There are ways to get a blood test to retest if you want to pursue that. I've posted previously how to order one through LabCorp. I did three different tests - LabCorp (1st), 23andMe and True Health (first and last being blood tests). They all agreed.

[Rubrobben]

Hi Tincup,

Thanks for the help.
I downloaded the data from 23andMe and searched for and found the rs7412 and the rs429358. Is that all there is to it or are there additional markers I should be looking for?
Looks like the 23andMe data is accurate.... yippee

Onward....
Bobbie

[Tincup]

Hi Tincup,

Thanks for the help.
I downloaded the data from 23andMe and searched for and found the rs7412 and the rs429358. Is that all there is to it or are there additional markers I should be looking for?
Looks like the 23andMe data is accurate.... yippee

Onward....
Bobbie

For ApoE4, that is it. I would not suspect that 23andMe would interpret the SNP's incorrectly, since that would just be computer looking at them. However, there is a small possibility that the calls for the SNPs in the analysis of the saliva are incorrect, from when the saliva was run through the "chip". Given your family situation, I likely would not do this, but you could run a serum test to confirm.

You can run your data through other services, like Promethease, Rhonda Patrick's foundmyfitness.com site and others. You could look at MTHFR (a whole bunch of SNP's), COMT and others.

[Lap]

I run an APOE test via our national health care.
I did 23andme also a year ago and just this week they emailed me that new health reports are available. They got the same result as the test done by my national health care.
So pretty valid stuff by 23andme at least in my case.