Is your child the next Dhoni?

What sports is your child best suited to? What if you could find out well before they hit the first ball and even before their very first steps? Thanks to American scientists turning crystal ball gazers, perhaps you can

COULD your child be the next M S Dhoni, Sachin Tendulkar or Abhinav Bindra?
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In America, performance-obsessed parents are clamouring to get their hands on a new test that will confirm how gifted (or not) their children are so that they can steer them along an athletic path to which they are genetically suited. For u00a3100, the Colorado-based company Atlas Sports Genetics will analyse the DNA of children as young as one to help predict their prospective sporting prowess.

In a trend that takes obsessive parenting to a new level, two other companies CyGene in Florida and Genetic Technologies in Australia are offering athletic performance DNA analysis with Britons among those who have already been buying them over the internet. Private genetic testing clinics in the UK will soon launch similar services there. "Certainly some companies, including my own, are looking at sports potential testing," says Brian Whitley, managing director of the Genetic Health Clinic in Harley Street. "In our practice we would never test on anyone under 18 and at the moment I am sceptical about the clinical data supporting the athletic tests that are available. But I'm sure there will be one based in this country within the next year."

Costing just under u00a350, the Australian kits are proving such a hit that they are now being distributed through gyms and health clubs in Melbourne and other cities, sold to adults as a training aid that will help them target their fitness strengths and weaknesses. The procedure for each of the commercial genetic performance analyses is straightforward. All that is required is a swab taken from inside the child's cheek and along the gums to obtain sufficient DNA. Sealed in a sterile bag, the sample is then returned to the appropriate company's laboratories for analysis. Results are usually dispatched within 10-15 days and, in the case of Atlas, arrive with a certificate detailing 'Your Genetic Advantage'. In theory, they summarise all you need to know about physiological strengths and suitability for certain sports.

Those who market the tests are keen to point out that the genetic profiles they produce are intended only as a guide for parents, not as a green light to push their child into competitive sport before they may be ready.

Aware of the potential for misuse, Kevin Reilly, president of Atlas Sports Genetics, admits worrying about parents "who get back results that don't match the expectations they have for their child". Meanwhile, though, Professor Deon Venter, chief pathologist for Genetic Technologies and a former winner of the British Ironman Triathlon title, says he has performed the test on himself and on his own children. He defends this controversial decision by claiming it is "not a test that says you are going to be a winner or a loser, it is just piece number one in the jigsaw puzzle of sports performance."

For many others, the lure of knowing whether there is a potential for potentially lucrative sporting success in the family is proving just too powerful. Available over the Internet to anyone with a credit card, the Atlas Sports and Genetic Technologies tests evaluate just one gene, ACTN3 one of more than 20,000 in the human genome the relevance of which was discovered six years ago by scientists at the University of Sydney who worked in collaboration with the Australian Institute of Sport. In their study of 429 athletes including 50 Olympians in 14 sports, the researchers looked at combinations of ACTN3 to determine whether they made someone better at speed and power based sports like football and sprinting or endurance based activities like cycling and marathon running. As with other genes a copy of ACTN3 is provided by each parent and those with the 'normal' variation produce a protein called alpha-actinin-3 that is found in 'fast twitch muscles', the type predominantly used to make fast, powerful movements.

But some people have a variation called R577X which prevents production of alpha-actinin-3 and effectively slows them down, making them more suited to longer-duration sports. In the Australian findings, participants in sprint and power events were more likely than average Australians to have two copies of ACTN3 while no elite female sprinter had two copies of the R577X variant. Among endurance athletes, nearly one quarter of elite long distance runners had two copies of R577X. It led to ACTN3 being dubbed the 'speed gene' and to other studies that have proven elite athletes possess them in the right combination. In 2008, Professor Alejandro Lucia from the European University of Madrid published findings in the British Journal of Sports Science that showed elite footballers tend to have the ACTN3 gene.

But having champion genes does not necessarily make you a winner. In a 2007 meeting of the British Association of Sport and Exercise Sciences (BASES), experts in the area expressed skepticism about the accuracy and usefulness of the current crop of genetic sports tests currently being marketed. "I really don't think the genetic sports performance tests that are on sale at the moment do what they are supposed to do," says Dr Alun Williams, a physiologist in the department of exercise and sports science at Manchester Metropolitan University and a member of the BASES panel. "Research into this area is in its infancy and it is thought that there are maybe a couple of dozen genes that have implications for sports performance. A bit of information provided on just one gene, the ACTN3, doesn't tell you much." Williams says that the Cygene test which analyses six genetic variations probably comes closer than any to providing clues to someone's abilities, but it will not identify a potential future Olympic champion. "However," he says. "With more studies emerging all the time we may not be too far from the point when that is possible."

In a position statement produced as a result of the meeting, the BASES group said that while genetic research into athletic ability "should be encouraged for its potential benefits in both sport and public health" there were many concerns, ethical and otherwise, about the procedures. At Atlas Sports Genetics the focus is on testing children aged between one and eight when physical performance and fitness tests are inappropriate. "There is a major ethical issue about testing children," Williams says. "Adults who take these tests do so knowing the potential outcome and are emotionally equipped to deal with the results. I don't have a problem with consenting grown ups using them. But children are not aware of the implications and are not able to make the same decisions and choices." There is also a risk that DNA performance tests might uncover an increased risk of disease. "It is possible that a sport gene test could inadvertently uncover a link with diseases such as cancer," Williams says. "Not everyone would want to live their early years knowing that they are likely to suffer from cancer by the time they are in their 40s."

Ultimately, of course, athletic performance is about much more than one gene. Kevin Reilly sees genotyping as simply a tool that can help athletes tailor their strategies to their aptitudes. "This is A tool, not THE tool," he says. "If parents are relying on genetic testing as the only performance indicator to tell whether they will do good or bad in sports they are going to be disappointed because it is not for that purpose. It should be used as a tool to help select what activity is best for them." But even that does not sit easily with my parental instinct which is is to expose my three year-year-old to the diversities of life, including sport, in the hope that he will choose to pursue hobbies that maybe he is good at, but mostly that he enjoys.

Could I be trusted to do that if I was armed with results from a gene test that might suggest he is steered towards a specific activity? I am not so sure.

Planet Syndication

All photos used for representational purposes only