‘Genetic ignorance is bliss’

NEW YORK: There’s such a thing as too much information when it comes to learning about your genes, two new studies suggest.

In one study, participants thought they were learning about their genetic risk for depression, not knowing that the test results they were given had been made up at random.

The participants who were told they had a higher genetic risk for depression recalled having experienced more symptoms of depression than did those who were told they did not have an increased risk.

“These results suggest that merely being told they have a genetic propensity toward depression might actually distort people’s memories about how much depression they’ve experienced in the past,” the study’s lead author, Matthew Lebowitz, said.

Co-author Woo-kyoung Ahn, a psychology professor at Yale, said: “This is particularly alarming when we consider that patients’ memories about their own subjective experiences are the primary information used to make a psychiatric diagnosis.” In a second study, participants who were told they did not have a genetic risk for obesity rated diet and exercise as less important.

“It seems that when people were told they did not have a particular genetic susceptibility to obesity, they assumed that they wouldn’t have to worry about what they ate or how much exercise they got,” Ahn said.

This “genetic invincibility effect” can give people a false sense of invulnerability, according to the researchers.