FDA case study: John is a 30 year old Latino with a high school education. He is concerned that his grandfather was recently diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease at age 85 and read about a new test that can tell him if he’s likely to develop the condition. If you were John, in which of these cases would you want to know if you carried the mutation?
19
votes
You have a mutation that gives you a 35% chance of developing Alzheimer’s.
You have a mutation that gives you a 90% chance of developing early onset Alzheimer’s.
You do not have any mutations that we know are connected to developing Alzheimer’s disease.
Contradictory evidence suggests you are anywhere between 3-30% more likely to develop it than average.
There is limited evidence regarding the clinical effect of this mutation.
I would not want to know.