#I do plan on making a profile for her smaller variant

[voidoftea]

Many Kitty

Insparation for her main talent being dancing goes to @bumblehoneybee and their fic

THE CARTOON: BEFORE CATNAP'S RECALL

    In the Smiling Critters show a side character named Many Kitty was created, but not yet implemented into the show. This pinksh-red feline was one of many talents, mainly because showmakers didn't want to bloat the show with too many characters (they were also working on a pretty strict budget because of Playtime Co. and couldn't make the cartoon as detailed as they wanted.) Many Kitty was planned to be primarily manning a studio where she could be seen dancing, or doing contortion in the main area, in the back of the studio would be her workshop, where she makes accessories to sell in the entrance of her studio before her classes. Many Kitty was planned to be a quiet feline who doesn't talk unless she is alone with someone she holds dear, yet still a patient soul willing to lend an ear to those who aren't as close to her. When the first designs of Many Kitty were presented to the orphans of Playcare, to say they liked her was an understatement, the kids thought that she was apart of the main cast, but they were disappointed when they were told that she was a side character. The main writers [REDACTED] and [REDACTED] decided to give Many Kitty a more important role in the show; she is the reason the Critters have their charms, and she would make more frequent appearances than other side characters.

THE RECALL OF CATNAP, THE BIRTH OF SLEEPY KITTY

    The recall of CatNap meant more than just his removal from the shelves, and advertising, Playtime Co. also intended to remove him from the Smiling Critters cartoon. The people working on the show were not happy to hear that CatNap was being removed from the show on such short notice, but they tried to make a replacement for the purple feline nonetheless. When [REDACTED] showed some of the new character designs to a select few orphans, they didn't land, the kids weren't interested. It wasn't until [REDACTED] suggested Many Kitty that a new night-related feline was born, using the design of Many Kitty and some core aspects of the character, they primarily used what made her stand out from the other side characters, her dancing moreso than her accessory crafting. After what felt like months of making tweaks to the character, finally Sleepy Kitty was born! The employees weren't allowed to (or able to) tell the kids that CatNap was being replaced. Sleepy Kitty was more social than her previous iteration, but not by much, when the wavy-furred cat knew her friends were sleeping soundly, she wound make accessories or dance. The showmakers took some parts of CatNap and put them into Sleepy Kitty, his nocturnal nature, his tendency to sleep when his friends were getting into shenanigans, his capability to sleep just about anywhere (and cuddle anyone,) the ability to sleep while standing up are a few examples. The flexibility granted by Many and Sleepy Kitty's hobby of dancing opened some new doors for shenanigans, an entire episode was planned where Sleepy Kitty would go missing, and DogDay, CraftyCorn, Kickin' Chicken and Bubba Bubbaphant, would try to find her, but she was somehow asleep in on top of DogDay's fridge, using her flexibility to squeeze herself up into a dark corner.

BIGGER BODIES SLEEPY KITTY

When Sleepy Kitty received the green light from Playtime Co, the labs got to work on making a Bigger Bodies version, using a little girl by the name of Emmalyn [REDACTED], daughter of the Smiling Critter's primary caretaker; Sleepy Kitty was brought to life, the cat was abnormally flexible compared to the other toys, capable of squeezing herself into vents, and to a degree, being able to climb walls and squeeze herself into the corners of the ceiling. The pinkish-red feline wasn't even able to be introduced to anyone before the Hour of Joy.

MANY IN THE GAME

   The Bigger Bodies variant, known as Many, woke up to the chaos that was the Hour of Joy. The feline was frightened, confused, she went into hiding, she survived by taking her targets by surprise, utilizing her agility and contortion to outrun threats. Many isn't with Poppy or the Prototype because she doesn't know that the player is in the factory, but before the player gets to her location, Boxy Boo manages to catch the starving cat, and for once, agility couldn't help the weakened feline, the player finds her after the unfortunate attack.

[prof-oleander]

So that's what Chestnut looks like! Very cute! Kinda wondering what was the idea behind her and when you started to put her in your canon. Also I like how her face goes :> in a front angle.

OOC: Yes! That's how I always pictured them in my head and I kinda regret not having drawn her earlier!

At first, I put her in the canon as a simple "example" for an ask about Pokémon outliving their trainers. And then I started building from there.

I have to confess that Oleander's grandfather was heavily inspired by one of my late grandfathers, that used to live in the countryside (and before in a smaller village in the mountainside) and that had the habit of going gathering mushrooms and chestnuts during autumn until he had enough strength to do so.

I thought about the woods in my area and the kind of vegetation and animals I know about in there, and which Pokémons could be found in there and then I remembered gramps returning with his basket filled with different edible mushrooms... so I thought "why not a mushroom-inspired Pokémon?" ...and I like Brelooms so it was a match! lmao

But since I read that usually Breloom is found in tropical forests (or so Bulbapedia says, dex entries do not specify this), while the climate here is on the temperate side and most of the woods are of the deciduous kind, I opted to turn Breloom into a variant that resembles one of the types of mushrooms that my grandfather used to gather: the boletus. (oh, no, now that I'm writing this I'm starting to think about other variants inspired by other mushrooms)

And her face going :> in a front angle... I guess it's a natural thing? (And I like it!) I used the Pokémon Go model as a reference, other than the Pokémon Home sprite (the shiny one bc I didn't want to accidentally pick colours too close to that palette).

This screenshot amassing something like 4 or 5 layers of drafts (not counting the reference pictures) kind of explains all the thoughts for the drawing. The arms made me struggle a little bit, I kind of changed the positioning a dozen times before finding something that looked good enough to me. (and I love that little side profile I doodle to study the face shape, maybe I'll find a way to use it in the future)

(pls ignore the messy shelves in the background of the PoGo photo I used as a reference. BTW she's my little pogchamp Amanita)

At first, I was planning to draw a proper background referencing a photo I took some years ago of the woods near my grandfather's hometown... but it kept not looking how I wanted it to look and I didn't like the result of the filters to make the photo look like a drawing, so I ended up giving up for the moment.

Fun fact (?): Before Breloom and woodland-related mons I also thought about the Torchic line and some rabbit-inspired Pokémon since we used to have chickens and rabbits (we still have chickens but details lmao), and he grew up on a little farm so I also thought about Miltanks and other mons but none of them felt right.

[adventuresofadinaswan]

Character Profile

Alright, ya’ll: I know I have like 2 followers, but Imma post this anyway. I want to start sharing my characters to the ones who will read ‘em, because I like sharing. So, here’s my first character profile. 

(Should I add a picture? Pictures are eye catching, right?)

Essence “Lightfoot” Prue Female, Human Variant Monk: Way of the 4 Elements 5′5 Colors: Black hair, intense hazel eyes, darkly tanned skin Current Level: 3  Weapon Of Choice: Her fists (of course) and a light crossbow Current Campaign: A Hunt In Shadows General Description: Ess normally stands up straight and holds herself with confidence. She has an undercut pulled back into a short and messy pony tail. She sometimes has strands of hair in her face as her eyes are in constant thought. Most are intimidated by her sharp features, chiseled jawline, a lithe, yet muscular body, and lightly scarred face, like someone who just got into a fight and won. Her blunt words, and curious glances through eyes that seem to see into you don’t exactly help either.

Her Story So Far:

Unbeknownst to the majority of her current party, Ess is the only child to a powerful land owners, who sought to have Ess want for nothing, and soon inherit the property of her own. Her parents thought to themselves: Here’s thier daughter who loves to spend far to much time in the sun, she will become a great heiress of many lands. However, as a girl with other plans, after getting to a fist fight with a boy, the young heiress decided to leave home and pursue her dream of becoming a champion fighter in the Rings of the Mighty. It may have been entertainment for the rich and those who could afford it, but it would be worth it getting to the top, At first, no one would endorse Essence, finding to be young and inexperienced. She found herself among the smaller underground fight clubs around the major city of Zerathus, losing, but always coming back. Broken bones, black eyes, bruised lungs. Every fight made Ess comeback stronger. Her fans called her an underdog in the making. Her opponents called her “one stubborn bitch”. For every fight she lost, she made another fighter run for his money.

Soon she was picked up by a sponsor, who introduced her to a combative master by the name of K’hiria Tielphae, a tall elf with silver hair and blue eyes.  He taught her how to use her dexterity and motion to her advantage. However, unwilling to be simply spoon fed, she started additional training on her own, pushing herself to her limits. During her first fight in the middle class arena, she lost dramatically. Her master then taught her how to be patient and wait for strikes and openings. 

“You’re a smart girl, Ms. Prue.” He’d say, as he leaned to one side of the wall and crossed his arms, elven body towering over hers. “But you must use your instincts. Stay on your toes, catch them when you’ve tired them out. Play your strengths. Don’t exploit your weaknesses.”

It wasn’t long before she won her first fight, circling her opponents and staying barely out their reach. People started calling her “Lightfoot.” Quick with a punch and even quicker on her feet, as she floated in the arena. Before her twentieth birthday, she had won the Tournaments of the Mighty twice, and became a finalist several times on and off season. 

Soon, it came to her attention, that though she was doing what she loved, she still felt unfulfilled. She retired and contemplated traveling around the world. She was afraid her parents may not take her back, after avoiding communication with them for so long. 

Before she could decide, a summons from the king of the region decided to recruit her as a splinter team to stop a mage from unleashing the horrors on the Material plane. Unwilling to pass up this opportunity, she agreed, only asking that she is brought to her parents and buried with her family if she passes. 

Since then, she’s been traveling with a dwarven monk, who’s ginger beard and jolly face placed some distaste in her mouth because of his drinking habits, an old soldier who had been charged for treason after deserting the army, Ess’s bardic friend, a gnome with a love for jewelry and a knack for fitting into small places, and finally a peculiar tiefling with dark purple skin and horns that curled like rams. Upon her shoulder sat a small black rat that seemed to stare aimlessly forward and occasionally sniffle. 

So far as a team they’ve encountered said evil mage, almost died, have been sent to an extradimensional plane full of undead, (where the old soldier decided to step on all the undead hands and subsequently piss off the other undead), and now are attempting to escape a dungeon under the guidance of a clinically insane sorcerer halfling. At one point, the old soldier slayed a  dragon wyrmling, which hit Essence pretty hard. In her world, dragons created the planes of existance, making them gods. Only these gods all died on the Material Plane, making this beast part of an extinct species. The old soldier, Ess now called ‘Godslayer’, which is not a good thing in her book. 

Along the way, under stress and duress, she unlocked her ki for the first time, leaping further than she ever thought she could. Though it isn’t explained to her, she feels like she’s doing something natural. Unsure of the extent of her new found abilities, she kept how she felt to herself. 

Recent Achievements: 

Shooting a crawling hand off the neck of her best friend with a crossbow with pinpoint accuracy

Jumping over 50 feet over an entire puzzle in the dungeon. 

Developing a crush on the cute tiefling with the rat. 

[nancygduarteus]

Can Your DNA Tell You the Healthiest Way to Live Your Life?

A double helix begins to swirl on my screen after I upload the raw data from my 23andMe genetic test to a site called DNA Lifestyle Coach. An ethnically ambiguous illustrated girl greets me, gleefully eating a bowl of vegetables while holding her cell phone. Against a salmon-colored backdrop are the words: “MY DIET COACH,” offering a health plan “tailored” to my genetics.

Here is what the DNA Lifestyle Coach, run by a company called Titanovo, promises: For between $215 and $320, it will send you a saliva kit and analyze your genes to determine how you should best live your life for optimal mental and physical health, as well as optimal dental and skin care. For another $150 it will measure the length of your telomeres (the protective caps on the ends of our chromosomes, which typically shrink as we get older and are being studied to understand aging), to help you assess your longevity. You can also bypass Titanovo’s DNA test and instead merge data you’ve already received from 23andMe (as I did) or another testing company.

DNA Lifestyle Coach is one in a batch of companies that has emerged in recent years, promising to pare down confusing personal DNA data reports, using science, leaving you instead with a simple set of bullet points for how to live healthier, happier, stronger, smarter, longer.

There’s DNAFit. And Kinetic Diagnostics. And even a “genetic superhero test” by Orig3n, which makes DNA-based predictions about your strength, intelligence, and speed. Most of these are aimed at boosting athletic and physical performance and preventing sports-related injuries. But DNA Lifestyle Coach ventures into cosmetic and stress-reduction advice, seeking to answer questions like: What can our genes tell us about how we can sleep better? What secrets does my DNA hold about preventing aging?

As I begin to read my report, DNA Lifestyle Coach informs me: “Your genetics infer that you will struggle to lose weight more than most, so your caloric cut should be strict.” When dieting, it says, I should aim to take in 600 fewer calories a day.

At first glance, this information does not feel more enlightening than any other diet or fitness plan I have ever tried in my life. Plug my weight, height, BMI numbers and heart rate averages into apps like MyFitnessPal or Fitbit and each one will spit out similar estimates. Tell me something I don’t know. Then, it does.

According to my genes, it says up to three cups of coffee per day could be beneficial, but does not give any details as to those benefits. And the psychological effects of caffeine are supposedly less pronounced for me, which means I’m able to sleep after a couple hours even when having coffee at night. It also predicts that I sober up after alcohol quicker than most. Great! More coffee? Less intoxication? All from my genes?

It gets better. Apparently, I have awesome endurance. Like marathon runner-level endurance (if I wanted to be a professional athlete). And my DNA Lifestyle Coach says I push myself in exercise and competition. That is because I don’t have any risk for “over-anxiety,” or other “negative emotions.” I don’t think my husband would agree. But whatever. I am starting to like my genes even more.

Feeling emboldened, I sign up for the company’s telomere test, which requires sending more of my spit away in the mail. It will take several weeks to get the results back, but I have a feeling the test is going to tell me I have robust telomeres too, and that I am going to live a long, long time. It is all beginning to feel a lot like that time I had my palms read on a street corner in the French Quarter in New Orleans.

But those feel-good endorphins that come along with being told you’re superior can fade fast, and one need only dig down into the data to figure out that such an inflated sense of personal biology may not be much more than an illusion.

“You have to know, this is like the stuff you see on TV after midnight,” Stuart K. Kim tells me after I share my DNA Lifestyle Coach site password and complete health profile results with him. He’s a professor emeritus in the developmental biology and genetics program at Stanford University. “Weight loss kind of stuff, anti-aging kind of stuff. It’s pretty far out there.”

I stay on the phone with Kim as he and I click on the little information bubbles in my report next to suggestions for carbs, fats, fiber, water intake, vitamins, gluten, and lactose. In each category, the report highlights my genes and SNPs in those gene sequences (single-nucleotide polymorphisms, pronounced “snips,” which are alternative spellings of genes that come down to a one letter difference. That one letter may lead to the gene functioning differently). With each SNP comes a link to an abstract for a published academic paper (most behind a paywall) explaining how it might be associated with health.

Kim goes a step further for me. Using his own academic accounts, he kindly pulls up and reviews the studies. He gives the company credit for posting the links to the papers in the first place—allowing customers to check out some of the conclusions if they choose. “It is buyer beware. You can’t just take everything at face value.”

Problem is, as Kim begins to interpret the papers on my DNA Lifestyle Coach report in connection to my own SNPs, he can’t even make sense of it all. Kim has served as an editor of PLOS Genetics, as well as on the National Science Advisory Council. He even developed his own DNA interpretation site for a Stanford class he taught on genetics, which students (or the public) can use for free.

On the DNA Lifestyle Coach site, my SNPs + the studies = conclusions like: Your eating behavior is 50 percent likely to be hedonic (the kind of eating for pleasure that leads to obesity and is similar to addiction). Then it goes on to recommend the LEARN Diet for my genotype. Yet there is no clear answer on how exactly the company came to that assessment.

At one point, I hear Kim say in frustration, “Maybe they are just assuming nobody is going to actually look at what they are saying? You almost have to be a detective to sit down and figure this stuff out.”

* * *

“We try to be open and honest about where the science is,” says Corey McCarren, the chief operating officer for Titanovo. The company launched after a successful Kickstarter campaign last year. McCarren’s specialty is marketing, not genetics, but he notes that his founding partner and CEO, Oleksandr Savsunenko, has a Ph.D. in macromolecular chemistry from France’s Toulouse University, and created the company’s telomere length testing kit.

“The science is now in a place where there are very strong correlations” between particular gene variations and health outcomes, McCarren says. Big data—the analysis of large amounts of data to identify patterns and make predictions—is now being used in a multitude of industries, as McCarren points out. The company believes that big data can also be successfully “applied to genetics, using probabilistic approaches.”

Studies referenced on DNA Lifestyle Coach have been published in academic journals. But some research is better proven than others, he says, and the company tries to give weight to the stronger studies. The journals vary in distinction, the studies vary in size and scope, and some experiments have been replicated, while others–like this one on how cloudy apple juice may be healthier for some genotypes—have not.

The DNA Lifestyle Coach algorithm ranks studies, giving more weight to those that are more prominent or corroborated. As research results are updated, retracted, or reaffirmed, the algorithm will also revise and update the customer’s report. The company plans to release its mental wellness, dental, and skincare tests in a few months (so far you can just get results for diet fitness and telomeres).

In the future, it plans to incorporate personal data on every individual’s daily health behavior, if users opt in to answer questions about themselves, “much like Facebook and Google are taking all the big data from what people are doing online and making assumptions about people,” McCarren says. “That’s what we want to do. We want to discover those important correlations that will lead to people able to live their best lives.”

“We don’t show all the studies” that are referenced and averaged, Savsunenko explains, when I ask about the methodology. “The number of exact studies that we used and combined in order to generate the result — it is our proprietary thing. Although in reality most of the recommendations are based on the quite simple genetic and mathematical approaches.”

Fair enough. But the equations behind the inferences still feel a bit like voodoo.

Take my alcohol results: I will sober up quickly, and “alcohol consumption will likely lead to hangovers.” This is followed by 10 of my SNPs and links to six scholarly articles covering how genes are related to everything from drinking behavior and intensity, urges to drink, and alcoholism risk.

But DNA Lifestyle Coach fails to mention anything about the ALDH2 gene variant, which I already know I have, thanks to 23andMe. It causes a reaction known as “Asian flush.” My body lacks the enzyme that normally breaks down acetaldehyde, a toxic substance in alcohol.  It builds up to abnormal levels even after half a glass of wine, causing the blood vessels in my face begin to expand. My skin turns the color of my merlot. My heart races. Within 15 minutes, my face and chest look hot to the touch, as if I accidentally fell asleep on the beach. People with this gene variant also have an increased risk for esophageal cancer.

Kim, who also experiences the same genetic pinkish glow when he drinks alcohol, was surprised my DNA Lifestyle Coach omitted it entirely.

When I ask Savsunenko about it, he replies that most people who have this gene already know they have it. “We are trying to get into smaller details of things. But, yeah, you are right—we should include it maybe.”

No matter what you include or omit, or how you add up and average it, genomic data interpretation is an ethically thorny and legally risky business. I wanted to know, not only if these algorithmic conclusions are safe, but if they are legal.

* * *

In the most romantic of gestures, my husband bought me a 23andMe saliva kit for my birthday in 2015. That was two years after 23andMe received an FDA warning to stop interpreting specific health data from its genetic tests.

Using a medical device like a DNA kit and relying on companies’, rather than doctors’, interpretations of our unsupervised genetic information from those kits, the FDA said, might lead a patient to undergo unnecessary surgeries to prevent cancer, increase or decrease doses or stop a doctor’s prescriptions and therapy altogether.

By the time I received my 23andMe results, the company had switched to focusing more on ancestry (it told me I am 50 percent East Asian and 50 percent European—no shocker), other traits like eye color (I’m likely to have dark-colored eyes—also duh), whether I can detect taste bitter or sweet tastes (it told me I like both), or if I’m more likely to sneeze in the sun (apparently I am). My report was mildly entertaining for a few hours, but it revealed no real life-altering information. I didn’t open it again until last month, when I dumped its contents into DNA Lifestyle Coach.

By then, the FDA had softened its stance on 23andMe’s tests and granted the company approval to tell its customers whether they have an increased risk for 10 specific conditions. These include Parkinson’s, late onset Alzheimer’s, Celiac disease, and a handful of other disorders that can affect movement, blood clotting, digestion or other health issues. My updated 23andMe report offered the reassuring words “variant not detected” alongside each of the conditions.

But in the years since the legal drama first began to unfold with 23andMe, other sites were ramping up, carefully tiptoeing around the kind of rules that could get them a cease and desist letter from the FDA.

DNA Lifestyle Coach has avoided this controversy, for now, by steering clear of medical discussions, McCarren tells me. When a genetic test company tells a customer: “You have nine times more likelihood of developing heart disease—take two aspirin a day,” he believes that is when the legal terrain gets murky. DNA Lifestyle Coach “is not a product to help you manage disease,” he says. “This is a product to help you make better lifestyle decisions.”

It’s not so different from seeking advice from a personal trainer at your gym, or a diet and fitness book on Amazon, McCarren says. Maybe you will see health improvements, maybe not, but you won’t get a medical diagnosis and you won’t risk doing any real harm. The difference, he adds, is “that there is strong enough evidence there to give people useful advice, which is better than just throwing a dart at a (diet) board and saying, ‘I’ll go with this one.’”

Most of these companies rely on similar data sets and “package it in different ways to try to make it understandable,” Barry Starr, another geneticist from Stanford University, tells me. “I was trying to think of a result that would make me change my lifestyle—I couldn’t think of one.”

There is just still so much geneticists still do not know, Starr says. Just because 23andMe cleared me of variants for 10 conditions does not at all mean I won’t still develop any one of them. One gene sequence is most likely part of an orchestra of a dozen or even a hundred others (many not yet identified)—all interacting to create a particular result. We also have gene sequences that protect us—which can counteract the “bad” SNP affects.

Your environment, the way you were reared and raised, and every choice you’ve made about your life until now may have had an impact on whether some of your genes are turned on, or “expressed” (as studied in the growing field of epigenetics). And Starr tells me that different DNA sequencing companies test different genes, which could lead to contradictory predictive health outlooks.

*  *  *

In the wake of the FDA’s 23andMe ban, Kim’s students became enamored by the debate over how much you have a right to know about your own genes. Some argued “I have a right to know. It’s my DNA. I’m allowed to use my brain to look at my own DNA,” Kim tells me. But others asserted that, “interpretation can go awry. Someone could make a stupid decision and hurt themselves.”

DNA Lifestyle Coach piques my interest enough to seek out more data. For just $5, I also sign up for Promethease, a genomic information clearinghouse. Again, I plug in my 23andMe raw results.

Promethease avoids the FDA regulations imposed upon 23andMe because it does not offer the spit kit. Promethease takes the raw results from 23andMe or Ancestry.com and runs it all against published academic genetic studies in SNPedia (created by the founders of Promethease), which is like a Wikipedia for genomic data, giving you a far more sweeping view of your DNA than either 23andMe or DNA Lifestyle Coach.

When I download my Promethease file, compiled on the screen before me into a mind-numbing document of multi-colored pie graphs, are 20,269 of my SNPs, looking for associations with everything from enhanced hippocampal volume, to better performing muscles, to worse hang overs, lack of empathy, longevity and gout. They are divided by colors: red for “bad” impact, green for “good,” and grey for “not set,” or not enough information to know.

In filtering first for only the “bad” as any morbidly curious person would (is there a SNP for that?) it seems my DNA is beset by perilous risks: melanoma, ovarian cancer, depression, obesity, schizophrenia, coronary artery disease, breast cancer, lung cancer, colorectal cancer, and of course Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s. Depending on how you look at my Promethease report, I’m also at risk for age-related macular degeneration, or I’m not. I’m at risk for developing Crohn’s Disease, or wait, maybe not. Different SNPs contradict each other.

Should I run this by a doctor? I wonder. Or a genetic counselor? What does one do with such a vomit pile of personal data?

It is this very conundrum that could give a company like DNA Lifestyle Coach—as its algorithms get more sophisticated—an upper hand with the public in the future. “We are focused on actionable results, McCarren says. “We assume our customers are not interested in just the genetic reports…we are not trying to overload you with the information.”

* * *

With my own DNA bible now at my fingertips, I still do not feel any more informed about my own health future than I did before. Despite DNA Lifestyle Coach’s fortune cookie-like predictions, I still embrace our inability to foretell most outcomes. My father has diabetes. My grandfather had heart disease. My grandmother had breast cancer. I always knew I could end up with each of these conditions, or I could dodge them altogether.

As dazzling as it is to see our DNA sequenced for so little cost, it is premature for us to map out life plans exclusively based on our genes. Of course, with science progressing so rapidly, that could change in years to come. My telomere test results, which took about two months to come back, indicate that I just might just live long enough to witness that future.

Longer telomeres have been associated with more resilient cellular health. My telomeres are longer than 59 percent of women of my age, according to the test results, which puts me in the “Very Good Zone.” It did not offer me any suggestions to improve my telomere length, although studies have found that meditation and reduced stress could have an impact. Instead, it gave me a calculation of my biological age (35), which is three years younger than my actual age. At the end of the results page, it also offered this caveat: “Keep in mind the full dynamics of telomere length have yet to be discovered.”

from Health News And Updates https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2017/06/can-your-dna-tell-you-the-healthiest-way-to-live-your-life/531885/?utm_source=feed

[ionecoffman]

Can Your DNA Tell You the Healthiest Way to Live Your Life?

A double helix begins to swirl on my screen after I upload the raw data from my 23andMe genetic test to a site called DNA Lifestyle Coach. An ethnically ambiguous illustrated girl greets me, gleefully eating a bowl of vegetables while holding her cell phone. Against a salmon-colored backdrop are the words: “MY DIET COACH,” offering a health plan “tailored” to my genetics.

Here is what the DNA Lifestyle Coach, run by a company called Titanovo, promises: For between $215 and $320, it will send you a saliva kit and analyze your genes to determine how you should best live your life for optimal mental and physical health, as well as optimal dental and skin care. For another $150 it will measure the length of your telomeres (the protective caps on the ends of our chromosomes, which typically shrink as we get older and are being studied to understand aging), to help you assess your longevity. You can also bypass Titanovo’s DNA test and instead merge data you’ve already received from 23andMe (as I did) or another testing company.

DNA Lifestyle Coach is one in a batch of companies that has emerged in recent years, promising to pare down confusing personal DNA data reports, using science, leaving you instead with a simple set of bullet points for how to live healthier, happier, stronger, smarter, longer.

There’s DNAFit. And Kinetic Diagnostics. And even a “genetic superhero test” by Orig3n, which makes DNA-based predictions about your strength, intelligence, and speed. Most of these are aimed at boosting athletic and physical performance and preventing sports-related injuries. But DNA Lifestyle Coach ventures into cosmetic and stress-reduction advice, seeking to answer questions like: What can our genes tell us about how we can sleep better? What secrets does my DNA hold about preventing aging?

As I begin to read my report, DNA Lifestyle Coach informs me: “Your genetics infer that you will struggle to lose weight more than most, so your caloric cut should be strict.” When dieting, it says, I should aim to take in 600 fewer calories a day.

At first glance, this information does not feel more enlightening than any other diet or fitness plan I have ever tried in my life. Plug my weight, height, BMI numbers and heart rate averages into apps like MyFitnessPal or Fitbit and each one will spit out similar estimates. Tell me something I don’t know. Then, it does.

According to my genes, it says up to three cups of coffee per day could be beneficial, but does not give any details as to those benefits. And the psychological effects of caffeine are supposedly less pronounced for me, which means I’m able to sleep after a couple hours even when having coffee at night. It also predicts that I sober up after alcohol quicker than most. Great! More coffee? Less intoxication? All from my genes?

It gets better. Apparently, I have awesome endurance. Like marathon runner-level endurance (if I wanted to be a professional athlete). And my DNA Lifestyle Coach says I push myself in exercise and competition. That is because I don’t have any risk for “over-anxiety,” or other “negative emotions.” I don’t think my husband would agree. But whatever. I am starting to like my genes even more.

Feeling emboldened, I sign up for the company’s telomere test, which requires sending more of my spit away in the mail. It will take several weeks to get the results back, but I have a feeling the test is going to tell me I have robust telomeres too, and that I am going to live a long, long time. It is all beginning to feel a lot like that time I had my palms read on a street corner in the French Quarter in New Orleans.

But those feel-good endorphins that come along with being told you’re superior can fade fast, and one need only dig down into the data to figure out that such an inflated sense of personal biology may not be much more than an illusion.

“You have to know, this is like the stuff you see on TV after midnight,” Stuart K. Kim tells me after I share my DNA Lifestyle Coach site password and complete health profile results with him. He’s a professor emeritus in the developmental biology and genetics program at Stanford University. “Weight loss kind of stuff, anti-aging kind of stuff. It’s pretty far out there.”

I stay on the phone with Kim as he and I click on the little information bubbles in my report next to suggestions for carbs, fats, fiber, water intake, vitamins, gluten, and lactose. In each category, the report highlights my genes and SNPs in those gene sequences (single-nucleotide polymorphisms, pronounced “snips,” which are alternative spellings of genes that come down to a one letter difference. That one letter may lead to the gene functioning differently). With each SNP comes a link to an abstract for a published academic paper (most behind a paywall) explaining how it might be associated with health.

Kim goes a step further for me. Using his own academic accounts, he kindly pulls up and reviews the studies. He gives the company credit for posting the links to the papers in the first place—allowing customers to check out some of the conclusions if they choose. “It is buyer beware. You can’t just take everything at face value.”

Problem is, as Kim begins to interpret the papers on my DNA Lifestyle Coach report in connection to my own SNPs, he can’t even make sense of it all. Kim has served as an editor of PLOS Genetics, as well as on the National Science Advisory Council. He even developed his own DNA interpretation site for a Stanford class he taught on genetics, which students (or the public) can use for free.

On the DNA Lifestyle Coach site, my SNPs + the studies = conclusions like: Your eating behavior is 50 percent likely to be hedonic (the kind of eating for pleasure that leads to obesity and is similar to addiction). Then it goes on to recommend the LEARN Diet for my genotype. Yet there is no clear answer on how exactly the company came to that assessment.

At one point, I hear Kim say in frustration, “Maybe they are just assuming nobody is going to actually look at what they are saying? You almost have to be a detective to sit down and figure this stuff out.”

* * *

“We try to be open and honest about where the science is,” says Corey McCarren, the chief operating officer for Titanovo. The company launched after a successful Kickstarter campaign last year. McCarren’s specialty is marketing, not genetics, but he notes that his founding partner and CEO, Oleksandr Savsunenko, has a Ph.D. in macromolecular chemistry from France’s Toulouse University, and created the company’s telomere length testing kit.

“The science is now in a place where there are very strong correlations” between particular gene variations and health outcomes, McCarren says. Big data—the analysis of large amounts of data to identify patterns and make predictions—is now being used in a multitude of industries, as McCarren points out. The company believes that big data can also be successfully “applied to genetics, using probabilistic approaches.”

Studies referenced on DNA Lifestyle Coach have been published in academic journals. But some research is better proven than others, he says, and the company tries to give weight to the stronger studies. The journals vary in distinction, the studies vary in size and scope, and some experiments have been replicated, while others–like this one on how cloudy apple juice may be healthier for some genotypes—have not.

The DNA Lifestyle Coach algorithm ranks studies, giving more weight to those that are more prominent or corroborated. As research results are updated, retracted, or reaffirmed, the algorithm will also revise and update the customer’s report. The company plans to release its mental wellness, dental, and skincare tests in a few months (so far you can just get results for diet fitness and telomeres).

In the future, it plans to incorporate personal data on every individual’s daily health behavior, if users opt in to answer questions about themselves, “much like Facebook and Google are taking all the big data from what people are doing online and making assumptions about people,” McCarren says. “That’s what we want to do. We want to discover those important correlations that will lead to people able to live their best lives.”

“We don’t show all the studies” that are referenced and averaged, Savsunenko explains, when I ask about the methodology. “The number of exact studies that we used and combined in order to generate the result — it is our proprietary thing. Although in reality most of the recommendations are based on the quite simple genetic and mathematical approaches.”

Fair enough. But the equations behind the inferences still feel a bit like voodoo.

Take my alcohol results: I will sober up quickly, and “alcohol consumption will likely lead to hangovers.” This is followed by 10 of my SNPs and links to six scholarly articles covering how genes are related to everything from drinking behavior and intensity, urges to drink, and alcoholism risk.

But DNA Lifestyle Coach fails to mention anything about the ALDH2 gene variant, which I already know I have, thanks to 23andMe. It causes a reaction known as “Asian flush.” My body lacks the enzyme that normally breaks down acetaldehyde, a toxic substance in alcohol.  It builds up to abnormal levels even after half a glass of wine, causing the blood vessels in my face begin to expand. My skin turns the color of my merlot. My heart races. Within 15 minutes, my face and chest look hot to the touch, as if I accidentally fell asleep on the beach. People with this gene variant also have an increased risk for esophageal cancer.

Kim, who also experiences the same genetic pinkish glow when he drinks alcohol, was surprised my DNA Lifestyle Coach omitted it entirely.

When I ask Savsunenko about it, he replies that most people who have this gene already know they have it. “We are trying to get into smaller details of things. But, yeah, you are right—we should include it maybe.”

No matter what you include or omit, or how you add up and average it, genomic data interpretation is an ethically thorny and legally risky business. I wanted to know, not only if these algorithmic conclusions are safe, but if they are legal.

* * *

In the most romantic of gestures, my husband bought me a 23andMe saliva kit for my birthday in 2015. That was two years after 23andMe received an FDA warning to stop interpreting specific health data from its genetic tests.

Using a medical device like a DNA kit and relying on companies’, rather than doctors’, interpretations of our unsupervised genetic information from those kits, the FDA said, might lead a patient to undergo unnecessary surgeries to prevent cancer, increase or decrease doses or stop a doctor’s prescriptions and therapy altogether.

By the time I received my 23andMe results, the company had switched to focusing more on ancestry (it told me I am 50 percent East Asian and 50 percent European—no shocker), other traits like eye color (I’m likely to have dark-colored eyes—also duh), whether I can detect taste bitter or sweet tastes (it told me I like both), or if I’m more likely to sneeze in the sun (apparently I am). My report was mildly entertaining for a few hours, but it revealed no real life-altering information. I didn’t open it again until last month, when I dumped its contents into DNA Lifestyle Coach.

By then, the FDA had softened its stance on 23andMe’s tests and granted the company approval to tell its customers whether they have an increased risk for 10 specific conditions. These include Parkinson’s, late onset Alzheimer’s, Celiac disease, and a handful of other disorders that can affect movement, blood clotting, digestion or other health issues. My updated 23andMe report offered the reassuring words “variant not detected” alongside each of the conditions.

But in the years since the legal drama first began to unfold with 23andMe, other sites were ramping up, carefully tiptoeing around the kind of rules that could get them a cease and desist letter from the FDA.

DNA Lifestyle Coach has avoided this controversy, for now, by steering clear of medical discussions, McCarren tells me. When a genetic test company tells a customer: “You have nine times more likelihood of developing heart disease—take two aspirin a day,” he believes that is when the legal terrain gets murky. DNA Lifestyle Coach “is not a product to help you manage disease,” he says. “This is a product to help you make better lifestyle decisions.”

It’s not so different from seeking advice from a personal trainer at your gym, or a diet and fitness book on Amazon, McCarren says. Maybe you will see health improvements, maybe not, but you won’t get a medical diagnosis and you won’t risk doing any real harm. The difference, he adds, is “that there is strong enough evidence there to give people useful advice, which is better than just throwing a dart at a (diet) board and saying, ‘I’ll go with this one.’”

Most of these companies rely on similar data sets and “package it in different ways to try to make it understandable,” Barry Starr, another geneticist from Stanford University, tells me. “I was trying to think of a result that would make me change my lifestyle—I couldn’t think of one.”

There is just still so much geneticists still do not know, Starr says. Just because 23andMe cleared me of variants for 10 conditions does not at all mean I won’t still develop any one of them. One gene sequence is most likely part of an orchestra of a dozen or even a hundred others (many not yet identified)—all interacting to create a particular result. We also have gene sequences that protect us—which can counteract the “bad” SNP affects.

Your environment, the way you were reared and raised, and every choice you’ve made about your life until now may have had an impact on whether some of your genes are turned on, or “expressed” (as studied in the growing field of epigenetics). And Starr tells me that different DNA sequencing companies test different genes, which could lead to contradictory predictive health outlooks.

*  *  *

In the wake of the FDA’s 23andMe ban, Kim’s students became enamored by the debate over how much you have a right to know about your own genes. Some argued “I have a right to know. It’s my DNA. I’m allowed to use my brain to look at my own DNA,” Kim tells me. But others asserted that, “interpretation can go awry. Someone could make a stupid decision and hurt themselves.”

DNA Lifestyle Coach piques my interest enough to seek out more data. For just $5, I also sign up for Promethease, a genomic information clearinghouse. Again, I plug in my 23andMe raw results.

Promethease avoids the FDA regulations imposed upon 23andMe because it does not offer the spit kit. Promethease takes the raw results from 23andMe or Ancestry.com and runs it all against published academic genetic studies in SNPedia (created by the founders of Promethease), which is like a Wikipedia for genomic data, giving you a far more sweeping view of your DNA than either 23andMe or DNA Lifestyle Coach.

When I download my Promethease file, compiled on the screen before me into a mind-numbing document of multi-colored pie graphs, are 20,269 of my SNPs, looking for associations with everything from enhanced hippocampal volume, to better performing muscles, to worse hang overs, lack of empathy, longevity and gout. They are divided by colors: red for “bad” impact, green for “good,” and grey for “not set,” or not enough information to know.

In filtering first for only the “bad” as any morbidly curious person would (is there a SNP for that?) it seems my DNA is beset by perilous risks: melanoma, ovarian cancer, depression, obesity, schizophrenia, coronary artery disease, breast cancer, lung cancer, colorectal cancer, and of course Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s. Depending on how you look at my Promethease report, I’m also at risk for age-related macular degeneration, or I’m not. I’m at risk for developing Crohn’s Disease, or wait, maybe not. Different SNPs contradict each other.

Should I run this by a doctor? I wonder. Or a genetic counselor? What does one do with such a vomit pile of personal data?

It is this very conundrum that could give a company like DNA Lifestyle Coach—as its algorithms get more sophisticated—an upper hand with the public in the future. “We are focused on actionable results, McCarren says. “We assume our customers are not interested in just the genetic reports…we are not trying to overload you with the information.”

* * *

With my own DNA bible now at my fingertips, I still do not feel any more informed about my own health future than I did before. Despite DNA Lifestyle Coach’s fortune cookie-like predictions, I still embrace our inability to foretell most outcomes. My father has diabetes. My grandfather had heart disease. My grandmother had breast cancer. I always knew I could end up with each of these conditions, or I could dodge them altogether.

As dazzling as it is to see our DNA sequenced for so little cost, it is premature for us to map out life plans exclusively based on our genes. Of course, with science progressing so rapidly, that could change in years to come. My telomere test results, which took about two months to come back, indicate that I just might just live long enough to witness that future.

Longer telomeres have been associated with more resilient cellular health. My telomeres are longer than 59 percent of women of my age, according to the test results, which puts me in the “Very Good Zone.” It did not offer me any suggestions to improve my telomere length, although studies have found that meditation and reduced stress could have an impact. Instead, it gave me a calculation of my biological age (35), which is three years younger than my actual age. At the end of the results page, it also offered this caveat: “Keep in mind the full dynamics of telomere length have yet to be discovered.”

Article source here:The Atlantic

[jrgarcia]

Is It a Crossover ? A Hatchback? Or Both?

The Mazda CX-3 was designed with the purpose of replacing Mazda’s smallest vehicle, the Mazda 2, in the U.S. marketplace; if you’re looking for one, a variant of the ‘2’ is now sold in the U.S. as the Toyota iA. The CX-3, now in its sophomore year of production, has made its presence known at the crossover lunch table that it is presumably here to stay, so long as people still enjoy small crossover vehicles with a sporty flavor and low MSRP. The 2017 Mazda CX-3 is smaller than the Mazda 3, but it is sold as a subcompact crossover. It’s a category I’ve never fully understood, because why would people want a SUV that is smaller – or equal in size to – a compact car? The logic didn’t add up in my head, but now I had to test one so it was time to find out why the 2017 Mazda CX-3 AWD should be an option for someone looking in the crossover market.

Exterior

Some vehicles just have a love-or-hate appeal to them and I think the CX-3 could land on that list. It’s small, but its nose makes up 1/3 of the vehicle, leaving a small rear end. It looks like they spent most of their time designing the front and ran out of time with the rest of the car. It doesn’t look bad, but it’s not – in my view – a jaw dropper, either. I wear different styles of boots and from the right angle the CX-3 reminded me of a boot; the low front end ending with the tall tip at the end gives it that shoe appearance. The profile is the CX-3’s best side (natch), because you can see the lines of the vehicle as it rolls up and down like rolling plains of Texas. The dual tailpipes at the end do give it that sporty vibe when you walk up to it, implying that it was designed with handling in mind and it might have a sport mode.

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One of my friends said that it reminded her of her own Nissan Juke. Depending on who you are that can either be a good thing or a bad thing. I think it looks like a compact sport wagon with AWD, because it’s a hatchback with sporty capabilities that sits a little higher than a sedan.

Interior

As I mentioned earlier, the CX-3 was built to replace the compact Mazda 2. Interior space is small; even for a medium size guy like me I was surprised at how large I felt inside the CX-3. I spent a good 10 minutes adjusting the manual seats and wheel to find the right spot where I didn’t feel like I was in a one-man escape pod. I had the Mazda CX-3 during the New Year’s holiday, using it to chauffeur my friends around San Antonio. All four of us were able to fit without complaints of head room or leg space, but anyone over 5’ 10’’ will have trouble getting in and out of the back seat. The low roofline makes a low bridge for anyone who is tall.

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Our test CX-3 was the Grand Touring AWD trim level, so it came full optioned. I sat in leather, with suede inserts – the seats were also heated. The Grand Touring is equipped with a host of upgrades, including push-button start, moon roof, audio and cruise control on the steering wheel and a Bose-equipped sound system. Mazda’s have always had outstanding, really fast AC and heater systems in their cars. Doesn’t matter what the weather may be outside, because in a Mazda you can be shivering or sweating at the turn of a knob.

The CX-3 also came equipped with Mazda’s Active Driving Display, which is a little clear tinted screen that flips up when you start the car and it sitting right on top of the gauge cluster. The CX-3 only has a digital speedometer, and is hard to see in the corner of the main center gauge while shows you the RPM’s. The display shows you how fast you are going so you don’t have to take your eyes off the road to look down at the tiny box telling you the speed. For a crossover that is meant to be sporty the CX-3 is comfortable once you get the seating position just right. Everything feels tight as drum and crisp to the touch – it’s the way modern should feel.

Specs.

The 2017 Mazda CX-3 is powered by a 2.0 liter SKYACTIV-G four cylinder engine turning out 146-hp and putting 146 lb.ft of torque to the ground. The CX-3 weighs in at just a hair under 3,000 pounds. Is it fast? If it is you are not aware of it. Put your foot down and the 2.0 liter makes a not-too-pleasing noise as it tries to pull away. Sport mode is available, but unless you want to burn more gas at highway speeds do not use it; unless, of course, you are planning on having a dynamic drive. One area where the CX-3 shines is gas mileage. The 2017 Mazda CX-3 gets 27 in the city, 32 on the highway for an average of 29 mpg. I was able to get close during my week with the CX-3, averaging 28.8 mpg.

One of Mazda’s ad messages is ‘Driving Matters’ (as, obviously, does texting and applying makeup during the morning commute – ed.), so I took it to my favorite country road to see if the AWD could make me giggle. The CX-3 does not have a traditional manual option (disappointing), but you do get paddle shifters, which are a responsive answer to your commands. Powering through the corners is where you can feel the front wheels digging in to pull through the tight turn without understeer. I wish I had access to a track to find out what the CX-3’s edge of traction is. On these civilian roads I was trying my best to see if I could make the front tires misbehave and the CX-3 brushed away my attempts by sticking to the pavement like a slot car. Fast it may not be, but it still has Mazda’s endearing quality for being fun at low speeds through tight turns.

The 2017 Mazda CX-3 comes in three trim levels: Sport, Touring, and Grand Touring. Prices start at $19K and can travel up to the high 20’s. The CX-3 used for this review came with a base MSRP of $26,240, but with additional options its total final price was $28,510.

Finals Thoughts

I have always had a soft spot for Mazdas, but I do have to say that this is one I did not fall in love with. The front arm rest is directly over the cup holders, which means you have to lift it up to place your Big Gulp, and any straws in said beverage will be folded down under the arm rest.

A real 1st-world problem to be complaining about, but for nearly $30K I think it’s justified. Interior space is too small for my taste.

But my biggest issue with the CX-3 is the why. Why would someone spend $26-28,000 on a subcompact crossover? Given that you can get a lot of vehicle for that kind of money, this doesn’t make sense to me. If you want a small car with 4-doors and a big trunk, get the Mazda 3. Want all that but in a SUV appearance package? Get the Mazda CX-5, which is about to be redesigned. Both are vehicles with MSRP’s similar to the CX-3.

Someone who buys the CX-3 is someone who falls in love with it. You need to have an emotional investment in this car in order for it to make sense to you.

  Read more reviews here.

Full review of the Mazda CX-3 and figuring out what kind of vehicle its trying to be. Is It a Crossover ? A Hatchback? Or Both? The Mazda CX-3 was designed with the purpose of replacing Mazda’s smallest vehicle, the Mazda 2, in the U.S.