Ever since direct-to-consumer genetic tests—which analyze a set of genetic markers across an individual’s genome in order to predict his or her risk of developing diabetes, heart disease, prostate cancer, and other common diseases—became available in 2007, experts have debated the consequences. The hope was that the tests would encourage consumers take steps to avoid the maladies for which they were predicted to be at high risk. But skeptics doubted that people would respond differently to genetic-risk information than they do to other, better validated measures, such as blood pressure and cholesterol levels.
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