Rudd’s daughter in tears as Alzheimer test puts risk at 60%
‘Cause great anxiety’
AMBER Rudd’s daughter has revealed she is ‘haunted’ by a private DNA test which revealed she is likely to get Alzheimer’s.
Flora Gill, daughter of the former home secretary and writer A A Gill, recalled ‘bursting into tears’ after discovering she has a 60 per cent genetic chance of developing the disease in old age.
The 28-year-old bought a genetic test to explore her family ancestry, before deciding to take up a promotional offer and ‘explore her DNA’.
The controversial tests, which can be bought online for around £150, use a cheek swab to screen for genetic predisposition to diseases including cancer, Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s.
But last week Dr Imran Rafi, a genomics specialist, said such screenings have a high degree of false results.
Miss Gill’s test apparently revealed she is up to 15 times more likely to get Alzheimer’s than the general population as she has inherited two ApoE4 genes, one from each of her parents.
The genes – a mutation of a gene carried by everyone – each double the risk of Alzheimer’s.
About one in four people carry one ApoE4 gene but only two per cent inherit a double dose. Miss Gill – whose grandfather Michael had the disease – described her devastation and said she frantically began researching cures for Alzheimer’s and turned to online support groups.
She said: ‘When I saw my gene results, I burst into tears.’
She added: ‘The duplicitous gene gifted from my parents was hidden somewhere inside me. I could feel it travelling through my blood, under my skin.
‘By the time a dementia sufferer dies, their brain can be lighter than a healthy one by the weight of an orange. That’s a lot of tissue that rots away.’
Miss Gill, a journalist, said her ‘best hope lies with scientists searching for a cure’. She has contacted other young people, who have also been told they are likely to get dementia, with one telling her the news was like ‘receiving a death sentence’.
Her revelation, in The Sunday Times, came as medics warned of a rise in ‘worried well’ patients taking private health tests then panicking at results.
The Alzheimer’s Society is among leading charities and experts who warn that genetic screening can ‘cause great anxiety without the correct support and understanding’.
And Professor Helen Stokes-Lampard, chairman of the Royal College of
General Practitioners, said she was ‘very concerned’ about ‘the rise of commercial, non-evidence-based health screening services’. She added: ‘Patients turn to us to interpret results – something we neither have the expertise or resources to do – or for reassurance if they are worried about results and want to discuss next steps.
‘This should be the responsibility of the company which has been paid to conduct the test, not the
NHS.’ The NHS offers free screening checks including blood tests for newborns and breast screening for women over 50.
But there is a booming industry for additional private health checks, including body scans and screening for risk of Alzheimer’s or heart failure.
Professor Stokes-Lampard warned there is ‘no evidence’ that the tests have any benefits.
Last week, doctors wrote in the British Medical Journal that the NHS is having to ‘pick up the pieces’ from the growing use of ‘unreliable’ cheap genetic tests available online.