Thinking of Getting on Statins? Check These Out First!

It seems like genetics should play a bigger role in how people are treated for various conditions.  But I suppose it would be expensive to test patients for the various "drug response alleles" that we know about.  In any case, I think it would be wise for people to get tested on 23andme and take a look at their raw data and see if there are variants of concern.  The FDA does not allow 23andme to report to customers everything in their raw data, so some people take it upon themselves to do the research with the help of dbSNP, Promethease, SNPedia, etc.  Looking through chromosome 12, I noticed that 23andme tests for a few variants that may impact ones reaction to statins.  

rs4149015 = A (risk allele with MAF 0.0547)

rs4149056 = C (risk allele with MAF 0.0877)

If it turns out you have one or more of these alleles, it probably would not hurt to talk to your doctor or even a geneticist, before getting on statins.