MyHeritage, a direct-to-consumer DNA testing company based in Israel, is expanding its offerings beyond ancestry reports to provide insights into genetic health conditions.
Here are five things to know about the new MyHeritage Health+Ancestry test.
1. The test provides 11 genetic risk reports, three polygenic risk reports — the most of any major at-home DNA test — and 15 carrier status reports.
2. The genetic risk reports detect the likelihood of developing conditions like late-onset Alzheimer's disease, late-onset Parkinson's disease and breast cancer, with a BRCA report that tests for 10 pathogenic variants of the mutation.
3. The polygenic risk reports examine thousands of variants across the entire genome to rate a user's risk of developing heart disease, Type 2 diabetes and breast cancer. These reports are currently only supported for those with European ancestry.
4. The carrier status reports list the presence of conditions that can be passed down to a user's children, including Tay-Sachs disease and cystic fibrosis.
5. The Health+Ancestry kit, which retails for $199, is password-protected and encrypted, and MyHeritage has vowed never to license or sell health data to insurance companies or other third parties without obtaining explicit user consent.
More articles about health IT:
DOD throws money behind development of 6 brain-machine interfaces
Big banks invest $50M to create blockchain-based settlement transaction system
The rise of medical device vulnerabilities: 5 things to know