Abstract
Personal genetic testing which is not strictly related to medicine or health is becoming more and more popular covering areas from ancestry, genealogy, nutrition & lifestyle and more recently sports and exercise. The reasons are compelling – if it were possible to read in our genes our potential sporting attributes and how to achieve them it would be valuable information. But is it possible? This overview will look at the current situation and future prospects – the authors believe that there is utility in sports genetic testing exactly what can be interpreted from our genetic results needs to be precisely defined and limited to what has been demonstrated by repeated scientific studies. Current areas of interest include optimizing exercise/training routines, VO2max improvement and predisposition to some common sports related injuries such as tendonitis. The interest and the scientific progress is reflected both in increasing rate of publication of geneexercise studies as well as in patent applications concerning genetic associations with commercial potential.
Keywords: Personal genetics, sports genetics, exercise genetics, VO2max, power-endurance, genotyping, sports injuries, sports patents, ACE, ACTN3, SNPs, GWAS
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