Using a Genetic Home Test Kit to Know More About Your Health
Home DNA testing is getting bigger by the day with the industry set to reach $340 million by 2022 (The Guardian). These kits are not only fun to use when your hobby is genealogy but also can be a good help in boosting your health. However, you need to be realistic about their accuracy and understand how to make any health-related decisions based on the data provided by the test. Use these tests wisely and double-check any potentially worrying results to ensure you get maximum health benefits from your genetic test kit.
Home DNA Tests: What They Are and How Much They Cost
Home DNA test kits are exactly what their name implies. They are kits that allow you to perform genetic testing at home. However, as it always is with the things suited for ‘at home’ use versus ‘professional’, they aren’t as precise as the tests you can get at a specialized medical facility. Moreover, even the top-grade professional DNA testing technologies available today aren’t 100% accurate.
For you this means two things:
- Home DNA test kits can provide you with helpful information.
- Any type of DNA testing isn’t perfect, so you should always take the results with a grain of salt.
Today, home DNA testing kits are offered by a variety of companies, which have their own laboratories to run the tests and databases to analyze the results. The number of these services increases steadily as the popularity of the product grows. Unfortunately, not all of them are trustworthy, so you should stick to the companies with more experience and larger databases.
One of the important factors to consider when dealing with home DNA testing kits is their price. Those vary greatly from $60 to $200 and beyond. Note that more expensive doesn’t mean ‘better’ when it comes to these products. LivingDNA company review in 2019 states that the current kit price is $99. This company is an industry veteran with a huge database and a high customer satisfaction rate. Therefore, you can use this amount as a baseline for reasonable home DNA testing kit cost.
Reasons to Use Home DNA Testing Kits
Today people mostly use home DNA tests to learn their ancestry or to make some health-related decisions. According to manufacturers, these tests can provide you with a great deal of information, including:
- Risk levels for various diseases
- Ancestry
- Weight loss advice based on your unique DNA makeup
- Skincare advice
- Biological age
- Fitness bioinformatics (predicting if you can become an athlete)
Some of these tests go into great detail even taking it as far as suggesting how much caffeine you should consume in a day based on its metabolization rate (NBC News).
Learning all these things about yourself is not only very interesting. It can help you develop a better diet and lifestyle plan that will boost your health in the long run. However, you need to be aware of the risks of making important decisions based on the results your kit provides.
Can You Use Home DNA Tests for Making Health-Related Decisions?
The biggest issue with home DNA testing kits is that the laboratories that do the actual testing aren’t strictly regulated. Unlike medical labs, the testing performed by these companies isn’t screened as meticulously. They also use different testing techniques, which means that the accuracy of results will vary by default.
All this means that there can be mistakes in the results you get from home DNA testing. Therefore, any health decisions you make cannot be based on those alone. Simply put, you can use them as guides for decisions regarding your diet and lifestyle. For example, take a look at your fat levels and lower the amount of saturated fat in your diet or start getting more cardio exercise if your fitness DNA test data suggests it.
However, when it comes to issues like screening for diseases, you should go to a hospital and get tested by certified medical professionals. If the home kit you used shows some alarming results, make an appointment with your doctor to verify them. Never use the data you get through this kind of testing to start any form of self-treatment. All matters related to diseases and lifestyle changes that will have a major impact on your health should be double-checked and approved by your doctor.
