23andMe Review: The Most Flexible DNA Test

If you want to learn a bit more about your genetic makeup, there’s no shortage of companies offering to examine your DNA. 23andMe is among the very best known, having had past investment from Google and GlaxoSmithKline.

Like other similar DNA tests, it will tell you where your family roots are geographically, and let you trace your ancestors. Plus, if other people on the site share some of your DNA, 23andMe will even let you get in touch with them.

However, while many of its rivals focus exclusively on ancestry, 23andMe has a not-so-secret weapon: buy the more expensive package and you’ll get insights into your health too.

23andMe review: What you need to know

23andMe is only very briefly a tangible, real-world product – you’re sent a testing kit so that you can provide a saliva sample, then you send it off in the mail (prepaid return shipping is included in the main price). A month or so later, you’ll be notified that your online account is filled with information about your lineage and, if you paid for the more expensive version, your health.

That’s the basics, but there’s more to 23andMe than this. Not all DNA tests are created equal, so 23andMe covers all its bases by testing autosomal DNA, Y-DNA, and mtDNA, putting it ahead of some of its rivals. If you’ve glazed over while reading that sentence, suffice to say that 23andMe is as thorough as they come. I wrote an explainer in our guide to the best DNA tests but, briefly, an autosomal test will uncover your family tree, though it will get muddled once you’ve gone back four or five generations. Meanwhile mtDNA and Y-DNA testing can only trace one side of your family line or the other, but can reach a lot further back – this can be good for proving a single common ancestor, potentially from as long ago as 10,000 years. There is a further complication with Y-DNA tests, in that women can’t take them, but male relatives can fill in the results on their behalf.

Because 23andMe allows you to export your results, finding another site to analyze your results should be very simple, given all three types of DNA tests are included. However, sadly, you can’t import results from elsewhere to 23andMe.

23andMe review: Price and competition

23andMe comes at three price tiers. The “Basic” test, at $119, will detail your ancestry. The “Essential”, at $199, covers both ancestry and health. Finally, the “Premium Membership”, at $268, covers the ancestry and health reports included on the Essential tier but also bundles in pharmacogenetics reports. With these reports, you can discover how your DNA may impact how your body processes certain medications – as well as extra ancestry features and a health action plan that makes recommendations using genetic and non-genetic data.

While 23andMe’s health examination offerings are strong, if your main interest is tracking down distant relatives around the world then you’d be better served by Ancestry (from $99) – which has a database of 14 million samples, significantly more than its main rivals – MyHeritage (from $89), Living DNA (from $90), or Family Tree DNA (from $79).

23andMe review: The DNA collection process

Once your order has been placed, you will receive a box in the post. It looks like this:

Inside, you’ll find a plastic vial that you need to fill up to a line with your saliva. While I did have someone on hand to document this, it’s not an edifying process, and I’m not going to share the pictures for fear of becoming a meme. Regardless, filling that little vial is harder than it looks – you’re not supposed to eat or drink anything for 30 minutes prior to giving your sample, and my saliva glands certainly seemed to suffer from performance anxiety.

Once you have your sample, you mail it back to 23andMe, where the scientists do their work. This is a long process, taking an average of three to five weeks, but when your results are ready, you receive an email telling you to log in to the website.

23andMe review: The health results

Upon receiving that email, most people will head straight for their health results. Sure enough, all your results will be there and ready to look at, from the frivolous to the ultra-serious.

Those potentially life-changing marker tests insist you read through a brief tutorial before you can look, emphasizing that risk is not the same as a diagnosis and should not be misconstrued as such, while “not detected” is not the same as having no chance of occurrence.

Clicking through these, I eventually found that I do not carry any of the markers that are associated with a predisposition to any of the major conditions and illnesses that 23andMe tests for – including Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s, or colorectal cancer. You may not be so lucky, so you really need to ask yourself whether this is something you want to know before buying – ignorance is bliss, or so they say.

The last of these major conditions and illnesses – colorectal cancer – is new to 23andMe, and wasn’t in my batch of tests when I initially wrote my review. It’s good to see that the service keeps up with the latest medical science, meaning your money goes further.

“Carrier Status” also requires you to sit through a brief tutorial explaining the risk of passing on a genetic condition to children. At the time of writing, the list includes 44 conditions, including Bloom Syndrome and Cystic Fibrosis.

For me, the worst news I received was that I have a predisposition towards “age-related macular degeneration”, which is vision deterioration that typically occurs in a person’s 60s or 70s. Not exactly something to look forward to, but it certainly could have been a lot worse.

Then there are the more frivolous sections: “Wellness” and “Traits”. “Wellness” suggests whether you’re likely to be lactose intolerant or predisposed to weight gain – I’m not, though apparently nobody has told my bathroom scale. “Traits”, on the other hand, gives you 37 predictions on lifestyle and personality traits based on your DNA. I likely have no bald spot (correct), no dimples (incorrect), and am unappealing to mosquitoes (sadly incorrect). Each one of these can be clicked through to explain the conclusions and it’s a fun – if somewhat unscientific – way to explore your DNA.

23andMe review: The ancestry results

The ancestry section of 23andMe is just as simple to use as the health side of things. You’re given an overall analysis of your composition as well as how your Maternal and Paternal Haplogroups migrated over the past 180,000 to 275,000 years.

It also lets you connect with DNA matches in the 23andMe database, which is certainly welcome, but it falls slightly flat when compared to Ancestry. Ancestry started off as a site for making, researching, and building family trees, so all the tools are right there, even if the best bits are hidden behind a monthly subscription. 23andMe used to have family tree building tools but, if it’s still there, I can’t find it. And even if it is hidden deep inside the website somewhere, it still loses out to Ancestry thanks to one key point: database size. If you’re trying to track down relatives, you’ll have more luck with the 14-million strong Ancestry database than with 23andMe’s nine million. As an unscientific but revealing test, 23andMe has 1,135 DNA matches for me in its database while Ancestry has 37,846.

That could be a reflection of quality over quantity, or even indicative of my living relatives’ geographical location, but it’s still worth bearing in mind if family tree building is your main aim. Unfortunately, neither service will let you import results so, unless you have deep pockets, it’s very much one or the other here.

23andMe review: Verdict

If you’re considering the Basic Ancestry kit, 23andMe isn’t really worth it – just go to Ancestry instead.

However, if exploring your genetic health is your main interest, then the Essential Health + Ancestry pack is very competitive indeed, with the ability to build a family tree on top of your DNA discoveries just making it more appealing all round.

It’s a pity that the company doesn’t sell a health-only version, so you can mix and match between services, but since it doesn’t, 23andMe stands alone as the most comprehensive DNA testing kit you can buy. Just make sure you want to know the answers before you order.