Doctors have long worried that unanticipated genetic test results could harm patients, leading to depression, stress, or despondence.
A new study may allay those fears: Researchers at Brigham and Women’s Hospital recently found that giving a person more risk information than they expected actually decreases mental distress and encourages healthy lifestyle choices.
“It is weird. You learn you are at risk for something, then you learn you are at risk for something else, and you feel better about it,” says Robert Green, a medical geneticist at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and coauthor of the study, published this month in the journal Annals of Internal Medicine.
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