In this fourth in the series of articles originating from G&H’s exlusive interview with Navigenics’ Medical Director Dr Michael Nierenberg, we look at the whole issue of low penetrance versus high penetrance gene testing. 
SNPs are known as ‘low penetrance genes’ where it will only sometimes produce the symptom or trait with which it has been associated at a detectable level. In this case of low penetrance it is difficult to distinguish environmental from genetic factors.   
Whereas ‘high penetrance genes’ such as the breast cancer genes BRCA 1 and 2 are those where the trait will almost always be shown by the individual …read more