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A 5 Steps DIY Guide to find Genetic Causes of Mental Illness

mental illness genetic causes guide dna anxiety depression bipolar disorder

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#1 world33

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Posted 30 January 2018 - 06:52 AM


If you are interested in learning about any potential genetic cause(s) of your mental illness/deficiency or if you just want to improve your mental ability based on sound scientific and genetic research you might consider to take the following steps:
 
 
Step 1) GENETIC TEST
 
Take a Whole Exome Sequencing (WES) test at genos.co (the cheapest whole exome genetic test option currently available, 125x quality coverage, Illumina Next Generation Sequencing (NGS) technology) for 499US$
A cheaper option and more limited genetic testing is offered by 23andme.com for 99US$ but as genos website explains:
"Genos WES covers 50 million loci (points, base pairs). Services like 23andMe offer SNP genotyping that covers under 1 million loci"
On the other end a Whole Genome Sequencing (WGS), which is much more comprehensive than WES, is an overkill unless you have a very rare genetic disease.
Ancestry.com is a third option similar to 23andme.com
 
 
Step 2) GET THE RAW DATA
 
Once the test is complete Genos will deliver a
A VCF (variant call format) file includes all identified single nucleotide variants (SNVs), small insertions and deletions (INDELs).
A BAM (Binary Alignment/Map) file, which represents your raw data, may be downloaded for the first 14 days after your data becomes available.
 
 
Step 3) PLUG THE RAW DATA
 
Plug the raw data results into DIY Genetic Interpretation Services such as livewello.com ($19.95 one off), promethease.com ($10 one off), selfhacked.com ($17 monthly or $170 annually, only works with 23andme.com or Ancestry.com raw data files), nutrahacker.com (only works with 23andme genetic test and does not cite sources) and search for genetic mutations that are associated with your specific mental illness or those that might limit your full mental ability. Most of those services provide several tools to facilitate the interpretation and analyses of your raw data. Genos.co also provides a fee-based genetic (non-diagnostic) consultation and some tools as well. Some of the above services offer beginners guides to genetic terminology and information where to learn for example about heterozygous vs homozygous mutations, SNPs and so on. Genetic counselling might overcome the initial difficult learning curve associated with "DIY Genetics Analyses".
 
 
Step 4) FIND THE GENES AND GENETIC MUTATIONS ASSOCIATED TO YOUR MENTAL ILLNESS
 
Go to Malacards.org to find which genes, genetic tests, drugs, clinical trials, publications are associated with your specific mental illness. Just search on the orange search field for the most appropriate illness. Please note that this does not apply only to mental illnesses but to all type of genetic illnesses currently researched and listed by malacards.
 
For example, for Bipolar Disorder you will end up to this page 
In that page you can jump to section Genes  to see which genes are currently associated with that mental condition. Each Gene is ordered by Score or relevance/importance. Some genetic illnesses have a so called elite gene (marked with a star), a gene that is strongly correlated to that specific genetic illnesses and most likely is its primary cause.
In mental illnesses, however, very often there are no elite genes but several non-elite genes that can contribute to the condition. The list of genes might not be exhaustive especially if Genome-wide Association Studies (GWAS) have never been carried out for that specific mental illness.
 
Despite being a very good source, Malacards.org might not present all the genes currently associated with a certain mental illness. Other sources to search are Pubmed and in particular the sub-database ClinVar (About: "ClinVar is a freely accessible, public archive of reports of the relationships among human variations and phenotypes, with supporting evidence. ClinVar thus facilitates access to and communication about the relationships asserted between human variation and observed health status, and the history of that interpretation. "). Both databases provide a search field where to search for keywords like "yourmentalilness AND genes" (e.g. bipolar disorder AND genes)
Once you have pinpointed a number of Genes, and in particular SNPs (usually starting with the nomenclature rs#####, e.g. rs1801133 or C677T) mutations, that are associated with your mental illness you are ready to go to the next step and find out whether you have those mutations or not.
 
Step 5) FIND WHETHER YOU HAVE THOSE GENETIC MUTATIONS ASSOCIATED WITH YOUR MENTAL ILLNESS
 
Once identified a number of genes and in particular SNPs associated with your specific mental illness, among the enormous pool of genes and SNPs, you are able to use services like livewello.com, selfhacked.com (23andme raw data only) and promethease.com to find out whether you have those mutations associated with the illness. Selfhacked.com also suggests what supplements/drugs to take (and to avoid) for most SNPs based on research duly referenced. Promethease.com provides a list of drugs and how you will potentially react/benefit from them for various illnesses, not just mental ones. Sometime for some of your mutations some supplements are suggested and for some other the same supplements are not recommended. Only a process of trial and error will tell you whether some supplements are good for you. Make sure to choose the best brand for each supplement based on independent reviews (not affiliate links) because you do not want to miss the chance and consolidate the idea that a supplement is not doing anything for you just because you chose the wrong (i.e. less potent) brand. Trust reputable well-known brands (i.e. Now Foods, Jarrow Formulas, Thorne Research, Source Naturals and similar) and research for reviews on Amazon.com, iherb.com, Vitacost.com for each specific supplement. Not necessarily these companies are good at making all their products and at a competitive price.
 
 
CONCLUSIONS
 
The Longecity Forum and community should seriously consider to give more space and importance to the genetic field in their mission to extend life. Thinking that it exists one single formula to extend life for every human being it is like thinking, as it happened some decades ago, that it existed only one form of cancer. Some drugs and supplements might even have opposite effects based on the particular genetic make-up and mutations and biological effects that those have on each single person. There is not one single form of depression, anxiety or other complex mental illnesses because there could be so many genetic mutations involved and their co-occurrence and epigenetic manifestation could come into play as well.
 
In my opinion extending life in a Genetic Era also means preventing the epigenetic manifestation of every potentially negative genetic mutation and overcoming and treating those mutations once already manifested through personalized medicine.
 
 
DISCLAIMER
 
This is intended to be a brief DIY guide for finding potential genetic causes of mental illnesses (or any other genetic illness as a matter of fact). Please note that I am not affiliated with any of the companies/services above. I do not also have any medical degree or background whatsoever and this brief guide is the result of my own long research of genetic causes for my Generalized Anxiety Disorder (morning anxiety) driven by pure intellectual curiosity (or, as my wife calls it, hypochondriacal orientation ;)  ). I find genetics, pharmacogenomics and nutrigenomics fascinating fields and I think we are just at the beginning of adopting Genetics as a primary tool to help diagnose and treat medical conditions more effectively. I strongly recommend not to take any medical decision without consulting first with a genetic counselor and general practitioner.


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#2 ceridwen

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Posted 30 January 2018 - 07:07 AM

I had APOE4,APP and PSEN2 mutations when I looked. I've been trying to ward off my bad memory all my life but now my future looks bleak.

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#3 jack black

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Posted 30 January 2018 - 02:05 PM

OP, have you done it yourself?

did it help to improve your mental abilities?


Edited by jack black, 30 January 2018 - 02:06 PM.

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#4 ceridwen

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Posted 30 January 2018 - 03:28 PM

I had a 23 and me test done.

#5 jack black

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Posted 31 January 2018 - 01:15 PM

OP, have you done it yourself?

did it help to improve your mental abilities?

 

since the OP didn't come back to answer that, I guess his answer is: no.

 

some of us did that and it didn't "improve mental abilities"



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#6 world33

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Posted 02 February 2018 - 03:03 AM

OP, have you done it yourself?
did it help to improve your mental abilities?

 

Yes, I did with 23andme.com and it helped me a lot understand so many things not just related to mental illness. For example I discovered that I have a homozygous mutation in the MTHFR gene (rs1801133 or C677T ) that does not allow me to convert efficiently (just 30%) folic acid into its active form methylfolate. I have to avoid folic acid supplementation and require methylfolate supplementation instead. Deplin, which is a prescription methylfolate drug, is used as additional treatment for depression by some possibly just for this reason. I have three mutations in the BCMO1 gene that do not allow me to convert efficiently beta-carotene into vitamin A. That might explain why I have been very short-sighted since an early age. Lastly I have NR3C1, GAD1 mutations that might explain my high level of cortisol/stress and generalized anxiety disorder. I am now supplementing with rhodiola, methylfolate, cod liver oil, phosphatidylserine, soy lechitin based on that information and it makes a huge difference in my mental health. 
Unfortunately 23andme.com data is limited compare to genos.co and there are so many other genes that could play a part. My next step is to take the more expensive genos.co test to have a comprehensive understanding of the genetic causes of my GAD. I attach a copy of my Nutrahacker report for your info. Please note that nutrahacker is the only service that does not provide references to their claims and recommendations so for this reason is my least favorite out of all. However they provide a synthetic pdf report with supplements to take and avoid for each SNP and it could be useful to understand the type of information someone can obtain by embracing the genetic route. The other services provide much more references and information but not all accept the genos.co raw data file at this stage.

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