Are Genetic Tests Useful Part 3

It's an uncommonly bright day in Pacifica, California, the often fog-bound beach town just south of San Francisco where tech guru and Wired magazine maverick editor Kevin Kelly is showing me his DNA. And I'm showing him mine.

Welcome to the new world of genetic voyeurism, where those of us who are DNA curious can now peek inside another person's double helix and glimpse his or her DNA.

EXPERIMENTAL MAN David Ewing Duncan explores advances in personalized medicine and what they can tell us about ourselves.

Kevin and I are perusing our results on 23andMe and DeCodeMe, online genetic-testing sites that have analyzed our DNA and posted our results on password-protected Web pages. We check out risk factors for everything from heart attack to diabetes, comparing our disease results, me using my laptop and Kevin looking at two giant flat-screen monitors.

Kevin, who writes the The Quantified Self blog, is typically gung ho about this new technology and information but admits to being underwhelmed so far. "I'm not learning that much about myself," he says, but he believes this will change. "It's like the first personal computers or fax machines."

I was able to get these tests gratis as a journalist or paid for by my publication, but Kevin is an actual customer. He paid nearly $1,000 each to 23andMe and DeCodeMe. "This is too expensive for what you get," he tells me, though he points out that the first PCs cost $4,000 or $5,000.

Kevin and I are both relatively clear of scary secrets in terms of diseases hidden in our genes, though if you read my last column, you'll see that I might have a high risk of heart attack—or not, depending on which testing company one is to believe.