Tapestry Results are In, What is your story?

I'm tagging members @dazlin @suzanne2 @gator1 @blundquist @mollyv @mpeters @dsisko @johnbishop @tjgisewhite @birchlaker @ess77 @paula3166 @erober80 who are talking about Tapestry here:

- Anyone participating in the Tapestry DNA TEST? https://connect.mayoclinic.org/discussion/anyone-participating-in-the-tapestry-dna-test/

@Erinmfs, what, if anything, will change for you as a result of having this information?

I sent in my sample in October but have not received my health results. A long wait. I was surprised about my ancestry as I’ve always considered myself almost 100% Germanic with family history dating to the year 900. But no. I now see that I have a good amount of Scandinavian roots. I assume the health results will be more actionable and am looking forward to receiving those.

My results explained why I had so much trouble at high altitudes. It didn’t add any knowledge about my health because I was already tested for common causes of cancer. It feels good to do something to help advance science.

Thanks for the reminder Colleen. I received my results a month or so ago and the Tapestry DNA Study did not find any DNA variants that would increase my risk for the three conditions covered by this test - Hereditary Breast and Ovarian Cancer (HBOC), Lynch syndrome (LS) and Familial hypercholesterolemia (FH). The ancestry part was interesting and was much more detailed with the breakdown than 2 previous ones I had including the free Genes For Good (https://genesforgood.sph.umich.edu/) and the Mayo Clinic GeneGuide. The others pretty much said I was 99% European ancestry. This one had a couple of 1.7% surprises. The really interesting parts to me were the Health Traits - I already knew Cilantro is not my thing and that brought a smile on my face.

Mine I got curosity so I checked myself and they were ready and a few weeks latter I got the email. I was not totally surprised except that I have a bit of swedish and Sardinia in my DNA and the other strange one was ear war, I thought what a weird test. But Ill say they are mostly true.

Hereditary Breast and Ovarian Cancer (HBOC) Negative
Lynch syndrome (LS) Negative
Familial hypercholesterolemia (FH) Negative

European 100%
Northwestern European 83.3%
Sardinian 8.9%
Northeastern European 5.5%
Finnish 2.3%

Arctic Adaptation and Lactose Tolerance

After a long wait, I finally received my results about a month ago as well. I lost my father when he was age 48 to heart attack, my mother had a heart attack and stroke at age 61 and my brother also had a heart attack at age 40. Many others in my family also had a heart attack or stroke at a very early age, so I was very curious if I had any of the genetic markers for hypercholesterolemia. Luckily, I do not. Not sure exactly sure what it would have changed, as with my extensive family history I am already doing as much prevention as possible to reduce the risk of heart disease for myself and my children, but I was still very curious if I had any of these genetic markers. I wonder if there are more DNA markers, as I've read there could be a lot more than what Helix tested for, but not sure what it would change with what I'm doing. But - maybe it could make a difference with my extended family (siblings and their children) and how they take care of themselves, maybe take it a little more serious since it can sneak up on you even though you can have a healthy weight and appear healthy on the outside.

I also found the Traits to be pretty interesting and fun to see - those were new to me. I had done Ancestry DNA before and I found Ancestry to be more extensive and knowing my parents and grandparents ethnicity (or so I think), it seemed more accurate than Helix's ancestry breakdown. Especially when Ancestry links me to my cousin's DNA and they have similar breakdown.

I'm a Mayo patient, my next appointment is in July. The Tapestry study says it's putting your DNA information into your electronic health record. When I joined the study at the NIH, it was a DNA study. So, now the Mayo Clinic has what the NIH has! Not sure if that's good or bad, my goal was to see what the NIH was up to. That was several years ago now that I was at the NIH. I'm glad I don't have genetic markers for those awful diseases that the study was involved with, but I have other awful geneitic markers. I hope my efforts further science!

I filled out a questionaire for
Tapestry recently. It was a family tree, asked for my family history. I filled it out, interesting. It was all graphic, it was nice. I was at Mayo recently for Myasthenia gravis. MG is a weird rare autoimmune disease.

I finally got all my consents signed and sent in. I think it will be interesting. I have had DNA and genetic testing done and they are still unsure as to what is causing my cardiac, vascular, neurological and pulmonary issues. They can only tell me what each thing is they are unable to find what is causing it. I look forward to seeing what they come up with.