Should their ACTN3 gene version exclude some of these folks
from marathons? Photo by Monica Darby.
Should I sign Johnny up for football or cross country running? Let me take a quick look at his ACTN3 gene to find out.
This scenario is not as far fetched as it sounds. A genetic test is available that claims to be able to help parents predict what sports their kids will be good at. The idea is that the parents can then funnel their kids into the sports at which they are most likely to succeed. How scary is that!
As I said, the test looks at the ACTN3 gene. Some work has been done that shows that elite athletes with one version are good at sports like football or sprinting. And that elite athletes with another version are good at sports like marathons.
But this gene is just one of many involved in determining how good someone will be at a certain sport. One of the key researchers who identified this gene has written that it can only really account for 2-3% of muscle variation in the general population. In other words, it is just one of many factors involved in making a star athlete.
So this genetic test might be able to distinguish an Olympic athlete from one who doesn't quite make the team. But how many kids does this really apply to?