BOULDER (Colorado): In health- conscious, sports-oriented Boulder, Atlas Sports Genetics is playing into the obsessions of parents by offering a US$149 (S$226) test that aims to predict a child's natural athletic strengths. The process is simple.
Swab inside the child's cheek and along the gums to collect the DNA and return it to a laboratory for analysis of ACTN3, one gene among more than 20,000 in the human genome.
The test's goal is to determine whether a person would be best at speed and power sports like sprinting or football, or endurance sports like distance running, or a combination of the two.
A 2003 study discovered the link between ACTN3 and those athletic abilities.
In this era of genetic testing, DNA is being analysed to determine predispositions to disease. But experts raise serious questions about marketing it as a first step in finding a child's sports niche, which some parents consider the road to a college scholarship or a career as a professional athlete.
Atlas executives acknowledge that their test has limitations, but say that it could provide guidelines for placing youngsters in sports.
The company is focused on testing children from infancy to eight years old because physical tests to gauge future sports performance at that age are, at best, unreliable.
Some experts say ACTN3 testing is in its infancy and virtually useless.
Dr Theodore Friedmann, the director of the University of California-San Diego Medical Center's inter- departmental gene therapy programme, called it 'an opportunity to sell new versions of snake oil'.
He said: 'This may or may not be quite that venal, but I would like to see a lot more research done before it is offered to the general public.
'I don't deny that these genes have a role in athletic success, but it's not that black and white.'
Stephen Roth, director of the functional genomics laboratory at the University of Maryland's School of Public Health, said the test would become popular. But he had reservations.
'The idea that it will be one or two genes that are contributing to the Michael Phelpses or the Usain Bolts of the world I think is short- sighted because it is much more complex than that,' he said.
According to him, athletic performance has been found to be affected by at least 200 genes.
Roth called ACTN3 'one of the most exciting and eyebrow-raising genes in the sports-performance arena', but he said that any test for the gene would be best used only on top athletes looking to tailor workouts to their body types.
'It seems to be important at very elite levels of competition,' he said. 'But is it going to affect little Johnny when he participates in football, or Suzy's ability to perform sixth-grade track and field? There's very little evidence to suggest that.'
The ACTN3 test has been available through the Australian company Genetic Technologies since 2004. The analysis takes two to three weeks, and the results arrive in the form of a certificate announcing Your Genetic Advantage.
It can be in sprint, power and strength sports; endurance sports; or activity sports (for those with one copy of each variant, and perhaps a combination of strengths).
A packet of educational information suggests sports that are most appropriate and the paths to follow for the child to reach his or her potential.
'I find it worrisome because I don't think parents will be very clear- minded about this,' said William Morgan, an expert on the philosophy of ethics and sport and author of Why Sports Morally Matter.
'This just contributes to the madness about sports because there are some parents who will just go nuts over the results.
'The problem here is that the kids are not old enough to make rational autonomous decisions about their own life.'
Some parents will steer clear of the test for that reason.
However, parents like Lori Lacy, 36, who has three children ranging in age from two months to five years, said genetic testing would be inevitable.
'Parents will start to say, 'I know one mum who's doing the test on her son, so maybe we should do the test too',' she said.
'Peer pressure and curiosity would send people over the edge. What if my son could be a pro football player and I don't know it?'
NEW YORK TIMES
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