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 Researchers selected 18 studies that tracked seven potential
behavior changes - like quitting smoking, diet, physical activity,
and using sun protection - among people who had received genetic
risk information for conditions including lung cancer, Crohn’s
disease, melanoma, colorectal cancer, type 2 diabetes, heart disease
and high blood pressure.
In general, telling patients about their DNA-based risk estimates
for these conditions did not affect their health behaviors or
motivation to change behavior and did not lead to negative effects
like depression or anxiety, the researchers reported in BMJ.
Most of the evidence was low-quality, however, the authors note.
Genetic tests have several possible uses but this review suggests
that such tests have no role in policies aimed at changing behavior
to improve population health, said senior author Theresa M. Marteau
of the Behavior and Health Research Unit at the University of
Cambridge in the U.K.
“Two other possible uses include providing people with information
to reduce uncertainty they may have about their chances of
developing a disease even if the risk cannot be averted,” as in the
case of the severe neurological disorder Huntington’s disease, and
in categorizing people by risk to see who could benefit from
interventions like surgery or medication, she said by email.
“Information is at best a weak intervention for changing behavior,”
Marteau said. “We just have to reflect on the failure of most of us
to keep our New Year resolutions . . . to realize that there is too
often a gap or rather a chasm between our intentions and our
behavior.”
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Physical and economic cues, like serving food with smaller
tableware, may be a more effective way to prompt healthy behavior
change, she said.
Genetic risk information may play a role in behavior change, but not
on its own, said U.S. National Institutes of Health Director Dr.
Francis Collins, who was not part of the new review.
“Inducing behavior change for diet and exercise and is extremely
difficult, and these subjects were not offered any support,” Collins
told Reuters Health by phone. “Even if they thought they should do
something about it there was no assistance.”
Linking genetic risk assessments with interventional support systems
and resources like wearable fitness trackers, as is happening now in
the federal government’s Precision Medicine Initiative, may have
better results, he said.
SOURCE: http://bit.ly/1U5Tvdi BMJ, online March 15, 2016.
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