Now You Can Genetically Test Your Child For Disease Risks. Should You?On the one hand, you might lea

Now You Can Genetically Test Your Child For Disease Risks. Should You?

On the one hand, you might learn valuable information—like whether your child has the gene for dangerously high cholesterol, a treatable condition called familial hypercholesterolemia that affects as many as one in 250 people and increases the risk of early heart disease by a factor of 20 according to the FH Foundation. That could prompt you to start your child on a low-fat diet or ask your pediatrician about statin therapy. Currently, the American College of Medical Genetics and Genomics (ACMGG) has named 56 genes for variants that “would result in a high likelihood of severe disease that is preventable if identified before symptoms occur.”

(Many women already engage in some level of genetic screening before the baby is born. In addition to a first-trimester ultrasound, an increasingly routine blood test analyzes DNA from the mother and fetus to detect some chromosomal abnormalities, including Down syndrome at 10 weeks. But the test is limited in scope, and there’s a higher risk of false positives with younger women.)

On the other hand, you could also discover something terrifying that you’re helpless to prevent. A growing number of labs and apps will reveal a child’s potential to develop certain cancers or incurable diseases, such as Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s, that wouldn’t appear until your child was grown—if at all. The potential medical, psychological and social implications of this uncharted territory has prompted the American Academy of Pediatrics and ACMGG to oppose genetic testing for adult-onset conditions “unless an intervention initiated in childhood may reduce morbidity or mortality.”