by Lori Andrews
While some of us might be heading to the gym as we start the new year, certain parents are making another sort of resolution. They are dialing up Atlas Sports Genetics and plunking down their credit cards to have their infants and toddlers tested for genes supposedly related to sports ability. One woman who was considering such a test told The New York Times, “What if my son could be a pro football player and I don’t know it?”
As the denizen of a city famous for sports highs (Michael Jordan’s Bulls) and lows (the Chicago Cubs’ near misses), I am cautious about making predictions about a current team, let alone betting my hopes that a three year old will grow up to be the next Tom Brady or Peyton Manning. And caution in this field should be the word of the day. The proposed test raises both scientific and social issues.
The test identifies variations in the ACTN 3 gene. People can inherit either an R or an X variant of those genes from their mother or father. Thus, a child might have an RR variant (inheriting an R from both the mother and the dad), an XX variant or an RX variant. According to studies performed in Australia, Finland, Russia, and Spain, elite athletes in sports involving speed are more likely to have the RR variation and elite athletes who are better at endurance sports are more likely to have the XX variant.
Based on these studies, Atlas offers to test children, claiming on its website: “Simply put, this gene determines three types of athletes.” Yet there are some obvious limits to the studies. The focus was on existing achievers—for example, the Australian study assessed Olympic athletes and other elite athletes who had represented Australia at the international level. The studies did not look at athletes who applied themselves diligently but never made it to see what portion of that group had the gene variations. (If a high percentage of these “losers” had the variants, it would suggest that the gene had less to do with success than Atlas Sports Genetics suggests).
And then there is the matter of applying it to children from infancy through age 8 (the target market for the test). No study has followed children with the X and R variants into adulthood to see if having a particular gene variant makes a difference or not. Moreover, parents who pay the $149 for this test are probably expecting to be told if their child has a unique ability, making him a one in a trillion athlete like Usain Bolt. But according to the Australian study, 30% of the people in a normal control group had the valuable RR combination, as did 45% of the people in the Finnish study. There aren’t enough Olympic sprinter spots for all of them, so it would be tragic if the parents of 30% to 45% of children started putting all their efforts into training their children as runners.
Parents might also erroneously discourage children from running who did not have the RR combination. But 50% of the Australian elite speed athletes and 48% of the Finnish elite speed athletes did not have the RR variant. Nor did Spain’s elite Olympian jumper.
The Australian study analyzed the genotypes of Australian “elite athletes.” However, 128 athletes who were considered “elite” had to be removed from the study because the experimenters were unable to definitively classify them as either sprint/power or endurance athletes. While the study’s authors found it impossible to classify these elite athletes based on their actual performance, Atlas Sports Genetics seems confident about its predictive abilities. The front page of the company’s website boasts: “Finding any great Olympic champion normally takes years to determine. What if we knew a part of the answer when we were born? See how…”
Nowhere on its website does Atlas discuss the limitations to the test. Nor does the company acknowledge that the data is limited to white athletes. A study of elite East African endurance athletes failed to find any association with the XX variant.
While not a sound scientific idea, testing children that young is a brilliant business proposition. According to NFL rules, a person can’t play professional football until three years after high school. What if parents test little Johnny as an infant now, find out he has the RR variant, and put all their resources into training him to be a lineman and he still doesn’t make the professional cut? Twenty-some years from now, Atlas may no longer to exist to be sued. Or maybe, by then, football will be played by human clones or cyborgs. Johnny’s talents will be as obsolete as those of a linotype operator.
And think about the potential disappointments if Johnny doesn’t want to play football and is interested instead in curing a major disease or playing heavy metal guitar. Or, worse yet, what if Johnny breaks his knee at age 12? Will he consider his life worthless? Will his parents?
Parents legitimately want to do what is best for their children. But is genetic testing really best?