My experience with 23andMe

As previously blogged, I've been anxiously awaiting my results from 23andMe and they're here! Yee haw. If you've never heard of 23andMe - allow me to introduce you to the service that was created for people to better understand parts of their DNA -- including their ancestry. It sheds light on the 150+ regions our specific ancestors hailed from, genetic traits and how they may influence things like taste, hair texture etc, and also health and wellness through genetic analysis. I've been itching to do one and jumped at the chance to partner with 23andMe to send in my saliva (lol) and tell you about my experience with the service.

It was about one hundred times more simple than I anticipated, to be honest. I got the kit quickly in the mail, easily registered my kit online, gave a precious sample of saliva, sent the sample off in the box provided with return label attached and paid for by 23andMe. Easy breezy!!

In the interim, I consented to research and answered questions about my lifestyle and family health history.

And then came the detailed and extensive reprts! I almost wish Simon and I would've each done a kit at the same time so that we could've sat together and compared Health and Ancestry reports.

So, my very Swedish grandma has always impressed upon me that I am, "100% Swedish!!" and since my dad is 0% Swedish I knew that was impossible but still thought I might be at least half Swedish? No. Sorry sweet Gram!!

I know she'd be thrilled with the 16.8% Scandinavian though. I guess I shouldn't have been too terribly surprised by the 48.9% British & Irish but now I'm regretting not going to London or Ireland back in college when I had a chance because that is part of my heritage.

Anyway, that was really fun to see. Moving onto just a fraction of the wellness reports ...

This is all pretty much on the money (aside from the muscle composition but I'm willing to do a little working and digging to find where that might be hiding ;)). I don't flush while drinking, tolerate dairy, and enjoy my caffeine to a serious fault. It's interesting to know that I'm less likely to be a deep sleeper, and also likely to consume more caffeine. If I want to improve my sleep, experts recommend creating a consistent sleep schedule and avoiding caffeine, especially later in the day. Guess I should reconsider my afternoon iced coffee!

Anyway, this just skims the surface of the wealth of personalized and detailed information 23andMe provides. I was expecting pretty basic results given how simple the process was but it blew my expectations out of the water.

If you're struggling to come up with a fun and unique Mother's Day gift - 23andMe might be just the gifting ticket as it's so fun to pore over the Ancestry reports and learn how genetics can influence one's health, helping my mom to live her healthiest and happiest life. 

23andMe takes your privacy very seriously and gives you control over your genetic information. They let you decide how your information is used and with whom it is shared. 23andMe also enables you to opt-in to genetic research and link your data to study topics from ancestry to traits to disease. Your contribution helps drive scientific discoveries -- more than 80% of customers opt-in to answer surveys. On average each person’s survey answers help with over 200 research studies. Also, you can find many customer stories on the 23andMe website at 23andme.com/stories.

Many thanks to 23andMe for sponsoring this post!!