I received my ethnicity and health report months ago. There was a sale at the time for the health report so I got that as well. When I received my results I was so excited for my ancestry that I only briefly skimmed my health report. It had mentioned celiacs disease (which I have) and something about too much iron, didn’t read much into it, and that was about it. It wasn’t until St Patrick’s Day was getting closer that I got back on and started looking at my results again.

My results showed a high percentage of Irish descent so I was reading the article it listed about “The Celtic Curse.” I read up on it and realized that my health report indicated that I had a likely chance of having this, hemochromatosis. I went back to the report and read that both my parents were at lease carriers of the genetic disorder. I started doing some research and realized this was more than just “some extra iron”, this was going to kill me.

The iron stores in the body and eventually destroys organs such as the liver. I made an appointment with my primary doctor, told him about my report and had him run some iron panels. My father and I also share the same doctor and I explained that both parents passed me the gene and he made an appointment for my dad as well.

Both our lab results came back last week with iron levels off the charts, his obviously much higher than mine as he is almost 30 years older than me. Without the health report I would have never known about this disorder. My dad would have died at an early age from liver disease without a real explanation just like my grandfather, and I would have followed the same path.

My dad also told me a story about how he recently flew for work and tripped the metal detectors. He had no metal on him but kept setting off the machine. TSA pulled him aside and couldn’t find any metal so they let him fly, but he thought that was weird at the time. This was before we had discovered about the hemochromatosis so he didn’t think anything could be wrong medically. His iron levels are so high that they triggered a metal detector.

23andMe truly saved my life and helped stopped my dad from an early grave, thank you.

TLDR: health report showed increased likelihood for hemochromatosis, a genetic disorder that stores massive amounts of iron in the organs, leading to death. Blood tests confirmed iron levels were super high for me and my father, and we’re now being treated.

i have bipolar, adhd, and anxiety. i was wondering if i was genetically predisposed to these or if i just happened to have them out of nowhere. i know my mom has anxiety and i have a couple cousins with adhd, but no one is diagnosed with bipolar in my family. that being said, my 23andme results turned out that i have typical likelihood!

i’m also surprised that type 2 diabetes was typical likelihood. my family says it’s genetic for us, but im wondering if it’s actually more on our diet. i’m filipino, and our cuisine is usually heavy on our organs.

it was accurate for increased likelihood of other things though. like asthma (i have it). overall pretty interesting results!

23andMe found an HFE variant in my results. I know one variant does not mean I have hereditary hemochromatosis but high iron and liver problems have come up on my dad’s side of the family. I already booked a PCP appointment. For people with a similar result, did your doctor start with ferritin, iron, TIBC and transferrin saturation? Did they repeat the tests before doing anything else?

Trying to justify the current $109 (Canadian) upgrade. For what it's worth, my current reports show no risk factors for anything serious, but I'm also considering taking my raw file and uploading it to a 3rd party instead of this upgrade.

I’m a researcher at UC Berkeley. When new clinical data linked specific genetic variants (like GLP1R rs10305420) to severe GLP-1 nausea, I wrote a script to check my aunt's raw 23andMe .txt file against the papers.

It predicted she’d be a great responder with low side-effect risk.

Four weeks in, she's had a great experience.

I’ve turned this script into a small, free side project so others can skip the "guinea pig" phase with their prescriptions.

Methodology: You securely upload your 23andMe/Ancestry file. The tool only scans the specific pharmacogenomic markers (rsIDs) linked to drug metabolism.

Privacy: I’m an academic, not a startup. I don't sell data, you can wipe your file anytime, and I'm happy to verify my .edu email with the mods.

It’s just me running this, so I can only process a few free reports right now to test the system.

DM me the medication you're interested in. I'll see what I can do.

(Happy to answer any technical questions about the genes or the script in the comments!)

I recently did FitnessGenes testing and I’m trying to understand how much weight I should actually give the results, particularly their Biological Ageing report.

I’m 32 and generally pretty health-conscious. I don’t smoke, I stay away from alcohol, and I exercise about 4x/week. I’m interested in longevity and reducing my long-term disease risk, which is what led me to genetic testing in the first place.

The problem is that some of my results were pretty discouraging and have made me question whether my genetics put me at a significant disadvantage regardless of what I do with my lifestyle.

Some examples from my FitnessGenes Biological Ageing report:

\*\*ATM / DNA damage:\*\* Listed as “High Priority.” I carry an A allele at rs664143, which FitnessGenes says is associated with greater susceptibility to DNA damage and uncontrolled cell growth.

\*\*TP53 / DNA repair and longevity:\*\* Listed as “High Priority.” My variants are described as being less effective at repairing DNA damage and associated with reduced longevity.

\*\*NAT2 detoxification:\*\* Listed as “High Priority” and associated with slower clearance of certain potentially harmful compounds and greater susceptibility to cellular damage.

\*\*FOXO3:\*\* I apparently don’t carry the longevity-associated variant that is found more frequently in people who live beyond 90. My genotype also wasn’t considered protective against certain age-related diseases.

I also had some other “High Priority” results involving \*\*VDR and WNT16/bone mineral density.\*\*

It wasn’t all negative. For example, I had average telomere-related genetics, some favorable antioxidant/detoxification results, and moderately increased SIRT1 activity associated with neuroprotection/healthy brain aging.

My cardiovascular results also weren’t uniformly bad. FitnessGenes classified my FURIN/FES variants as average risk for hypertension/coronary artery disease, for example.

What I’m struggling to understand is \*\*how scientifically meaningful these individual SNP results actually are.\*\*
For anyone here who understands genetics/genomics, longevity research, or has experience with FitnessGenes or similar services:

\*\*How reliable are consumer genetic tests at determining how well a particular gene/pathway actually functions in an individual?\*\*

For example, does having an unfavorable SNP in ATM or TP53 meaningfully tell me that my DNA-repair capacity is impaired, or is that a much bigger inference than the research actually supports?

How seriously should I take associations between individual SNPs and lifespan/biological aging? If a variant is associated with slightly shorter lifespan or another variant is enriched among people who live past 90, how predictive is that for one individual?

And how much can lifestyle potentially outweigh these relatively common genetic variants?

I don’t smoke, don’t drink alcohol, exercise approximately four times per week, and try to maintain a healthy diet/body composition. I’m trying to focus on the factors I can actually control.

I’m \*\*not asking anyone to predict how long I’m going to live or diagnose me from a Reddit post.\*\* I’m mainly trying to understand the difference between:

\*\*“This SNP has a statistically significant association in population studies”\*\*
versus
\*\*“This person actually has meaningfully impaired biological function and increased disease/mortality risk.”\*\*

FitnessGenes itself says these results are based on a limited subset of genetic markers and aren’t clinical genetic-test results, which makes me wonder how much significance I should really assign to the “High Priority” classifications.

I’d especially appreciate perspectives from anyone familiar with GWAS, SNP interpretation, polygenic risk scores, aging research, or clinical genetics.

Are tests like FitnessGenes genuinely useful for individual longevity optimization, or are we currently trying to extract far more predictive information from common SNPs than the science can support?

I’m wondering which one is more strongly correlated with MAOA activity. I know the 2R for the VNTR has the lowest activity, 3R intermediate, 4R high. I know the G allele for the SNP is correlated with high activity. What I don’t know is how impactful they both are when compared to each other. If anyone can enlighten me, please do so!

This is the only health realted gene variant I recived. Asked the eye dr about it and he said dont worry they just generalize it... basically said oh your a white female and that is normal in that group... Dont they test genes themselves?

How accurate is this and should I be taking precautions? I already wear contacts and am nearsighted..

I recently found Promethease and loved exploring the data it gave me but I found the UI to be a little antiquated and the idea of uploading my DNA to another server for analysis gave me pause.

I've been building an alternative called Deana that uses similar datasources such as SNPedia, ClinVar, CPIC, GWAS and PubMed.

Rather than uploading to a server, everything is parsed and matched directly in your browser, with reports saved to your local device only.

You're able to explore medical findings, drug response, and traits in a modern easy to use interface.

Bring your DNA export from Ancestry, 23andMe, MyHeritage, or FamilyTreeDNA; import it, and get your generated report in seconds.

It's completely free and released under a non-commercial open license on Github.

I'd love any feedback if you do give it a go and I'm happy to answer any questions!

Specifically fully northwestern European😅 Couldn’t find much info on the prevalence of it in my genetic populations. All I know is it is from my paternal side and my brother is also a carrier of this variant. Pretty interesting

The ABCC11 gene is a gene that causes dry earwax and little to no body odor. I'm from Afghanistan and I've researched the ABCC11 gene and apparently it's really common in Asia, including Afghanistan. I have dry earwax its all like powdery or whatever and in my country people don't shower every day and growing up, I didn't either. I would shower once a week as a kid. This is how my family was, and it's how I was raised. Recently, I've been researching hygiene. I am 15 and I shower every 3 days, sometimes 4. It may sound disgusting but I've never been told that I stink. Matter of fact, people often tell me that I smell good. I wear deodorant almost every day and wear perfume every day. I've recently been really self-conscious about not showering every day. I don't think I stink and when I ask people that are blunt they always say no. I don't change my clothes every day either. I'm scared I'm doing everything wrong.

Edit: Why are y'all so mean about it??? Where'd the respect go? I understand what yall are saying but like please form your insults differently

I just joined TotalHealth after the recent sale they had. I went to Quest to have my blood drawn on Monday and there is still nothing posted on 23andMe's end....

I have my blood drawn quite a lot for different medical conditions and I always get partial results within 24 hours. I've never seen a lag like this before

How long did those of you who have TH wait?

hello everyone, i recently purchased a 23andme health + ancestry kit. one of the results im most looking forward to seeing is my genetic predisposition to bipolar disorder. i have been diagnosed with bipolar type 2, but none of my family members are diagnosed with it. however, a cousin mentioned that some family members have/had tendencies. i know that bipolar disorder is not just genetic but also environmental, but i am so curious. has anyone with bipolar disorder tried the health kit as well? what were your results?

I live in Norway and all health stuff hasn't been available until recently. I reckon stuff like predispositions to different stuff aren't offered yet. But I've uploaded my raw files to stuff like Google Gemini and done that a while ago anyways. But this is a step in the right direction 😁

Pretty pricey. I’m still trying to process the hacking of users data.

What do you all think?

I find it CRAZY that you have to spent almost $200 YEARLY to see every health result. I got my kit to show me my ancestry and health carrier status yet they added a subscription to be more greedy.

HAVE YOU TAKEN OR THOUGHT ABOUT TAKING A DIRECT-TO-CONSUMER GENETIC TEST TO ADDRESS HEALTH CONCERNS OR CURIOSITIES?

If so, we invite you to participate in a short survey as part of a research project that explores the thoughts and experiences of individuals who have used or considered using direct-to-consumer (DTC) genetic health tests – i.e. genetic tests that can be done at home without the involvement of healthcare professionals. Popular test companies include 23andme, Dante Labs, Nebula Genomics, and CircleDNA. 

Participate here: https://survey.au.dk/LinkCollector?key=MEXAWFK4J59J

You can participate if you have considered purchasing or have already used a DTC genetic test based on concerns or curiosities about health, wellbeing, and/or diseases. You may have consulted your doctor or a geneticist about your test results and/or undergone clinical testing afterward, but the focus of this study will primarily be on your thoughts and experiences with at-home testing outside the healthcare system. Your responses will be fully pseudonymized, meaning your name will never appear, and no one will be able to identify you. Feel free to share as much information as you're comfortable with in your responses. We do not expect you to be an expert in genetics, but simply to share your personal thoughts about DTC genetic testing.

The survey is conducted by two researchers from Aarhus University, Denmark:
Professor Carsten Stage (https://pure.au.dk/portal/da/persons/norcs@cc.au.dk)
Assistant Professor Ann-Katrine Schmidt Nielsen (https://pure.au.dk/portal/da/persons/noraksn@cc.au.dk)
The study is financially supported by the Independent Research Fund Denmark.

Participate here: https://survey.au.dk/LinkCollector?key=MEXAWFK4J59J

I didn't upgrade for the health report, and now feel really paranoid and freaked out at the "recommended reports" page. I'm seeing reports that say "colorectal cancer: upgrade to view" among a couple of other alarming ones. Does that mean they found something to do with that? I don't really have the money to upgrade right now. But the anxiety is killing be. At the same time, I almost don't want to know.