After going back and forth for what felt like years, my curiosity won. I ordered the test and shipped off my sample. Three weeks later, the email arrived in my inbox. I logged into my online portal, scrolling past the bolded message informing of my “slightly increased risk” of Alzheimer’s Disease, instead, narrowing in on what I was looking for: how would 23andMe explain genetic risk alongside my results?
In theory, genetics offers an elegant, linear way to predict one’s future—setting up a narrative in which having “the Alzheimer’s gene” destines one to a very specific medical fate. The realities of genetics, however, are far more complex. Environmental factors, among others, mediate gene expression and diseases are usually the result of various (often unidentified) genes working together. Even considering Alzheimer’s, a disease with highly penetrant variants, my risk remains probabilistic, not destined.