23andMe recently showed that people of my genotype are more than twice as likely to develop Alzheimer’s as others in my ethnic group. I have a 15% chance of getting Alzheimer’s before I’m 80, up from 7%. See Patri’s post about this.
An initial Googling has generated things like ‘eat paleo’, ‘get caffeine’, ‘exercise’, and ‘use your brain’. I’m planning to do further research about decreasing Alzheimer’s risk.
I really recommend that everyone do 23andMe for this precise reason.
I really recommend that everyone do 23andMe for this precise reason.
I wonder, how much does that single bit of information (doubling the chance) matter to those decisions? Should you have been doing those things anyway, for the Alzheimer’s prevention and the other benefits? Is it the motivational factor of the formal personal certification that is important or the actual information?
Well, to point out the obvious, the expected value equation is ‘risk times consequence’, so if you double the risk and leave the consequence unchanged, by definition you double the result of expected value. (If I have a 50-50 chance of $5 with EV=$2.5, and I double the risk to 100-0, then my expected value also doubles to $5.)
A doubling could make a fair number of sacrifices or strategies now net-positive.
23andMe recently showed that people of my genotype are more than twice as likely to develop Alzheimer’s as others in my ethnic group. I have a 15% chance of getting Alzheimer’s before I’m 80, up from 7%. See Patri’s post about this.
An initial Googling has generated things like ‘eat paleo’, ‘get caffeine’, ‘exercise’, and ‘use your brain’. I’m planning to do further research about decreasing Alzheimer’s risk.
I really recommend that everyone do 23andMe for this precise reason.
I wonder, how much does that single bit of information (doubling the chance) matter to those decisions? Should you have been doing those things anyway, for the Alzheimer’s prevention and the other benefits? Is it the motivational factor of the formal personal certification that is important or the actual information?
Well, to point out the obvious, the expected value equation is ‘risk times consequence’, so if you double the risk and leave the consequence unchanged, by definition you double the result of expected value. (If I have a 50-50 chance of $5 with EV=$2.5, and I double the risk to 100-0, then my expected value also doubles to $5.)
A doubling could make a fair number of sacrifices or strategies now net-positive.
Yes, that was obvious. I’m not sure why you pointed it out as a response to the grandparent.