het3ver3geet4 wrote:Hello:
...I got the book, the testing, a doctor and...I still don't know what I really have. I'm 60 and was alerted by my own father's dementia and got 23andme testing which says I have one variant of the APOE4 gene. Specifically, rs429358, variant is C or T, my genotype is C/T. What does that mean? Am I APOE3/4? ...
Robyn
Welcome Robyn, from a 67 year old ApoE 4/4 who has been using this site for years and has gotten comfortable with being confused! Since few of us had genetics in high school or college, we're playing catch-up--with a lot of lived wisdom on our side!
I often use
Snpedia as a go-to explanation site, and have also downloaded my 23&me raw data to
Promethease, although you can Google other genetic interpretation programs. I think Promethease is free until the end of this calendar year as a special offer. You can go the link above, scroll to the bottom of the page and see some sample reports for what you'd be likely to get. Here's what they say about themselves on that page:
Promethease is a literature retrieval system that builds a personal DNA report based on connecting a file of DNA genotypes to the scientific findings cited in SNPedia.
I hope your 23&m3 report included the information that your Apoe 3/4 status is a risk, not destiny--we are much more than one pair of SNPS!
The SNP
rs429358 would indicate ApoE 3/4 if a companion APOE SNP rs 7412 is C/C. You should be able to go to your "raw data" for rs7412 using the 23&me search tool. People with ApoE 3/4 have, by one 2017 meta-analsysis of four large cohorts of people followed for a long time, about a 20-25% chance of either Mild Cognitive Impairment(MCI) or dementia by the age of 85 if they are currently 60-75. The risk for either MCI or dementia in the near future (before age 70) is much smaller than that. [If rs7412 happens to be C/T you would be a lucky ApoE 2/4, since ApoE 2 is associated with a lower than average risk of Alzheimer's disease. We have a very healthy ApoE 2/4 lady on the forum who is almost 85.]
It's likely that your father had risk factors you don't, and health issues that were not understood when he was your age. You and I both inherited half of our genes from our mothers, and may have gained some protective genes that will help us continue to play "where's Waldo" here!
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I strongly second Emma's suggestion of the
Primer as a wonderful--and reassuringly empowering---resource.
You dad would want you to embrace this challenge, and enjoy the opportunities that come along in our 60's. Let us know how we can help to make it easier to do that.
