Myth.
A new study that is being published in the New England Journal of Medicine dispels this myth.
The researchers found that a genetic test for predisposition to Alzheimer's disease does no psychological harm to people who take it. No harm even if it turns out that you are carrying the risky gene for Alzheimer's--APOE, for apolipoprotein E.
Dr. Green is a professor of neurology, genetics and epidemiology at Boston University, is the lead author of this new study.“There has been this extraordinary worry that disclosing risk was going to devastate people,” said Dr. Robert C. Green. “This has upended those assumptions.”
There are two excellent articles up on the Internet that discuss this new research study.
To read Learning of Risk of Alzheimer’s Seems to Do No Harm on the New York Times website go here.
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Bob DeMarco is the Founder of the Alzheimer's Reading Room and an Alzheimer's caregiver. The blog contains more than 2,255 articles with more than 272,100 links on the Internet. Bob resides in Delray Beach, FL.
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Original content Bob DeMarco, the Alzheimer's Reading Room