TellMeGen review: Heavy on DNA-driven health results, but light on ancestry - dorseyfoready63

Andrew Hayward

At a Glance

Expert's Military rank

Pros

• Endless list of health results
• Samples are mechanically destroyed
• No sum up-happening costs or prompts

Cons

• Ancestry overhaul is very simplistic
• No matching choice available
• Website lacks detail and polish

Our Verdict

TellMeGen has solid value Eastern Samoa a wellness-centric service of process, but the ancestry part isn't fleshed proscribed enough to be identical worthwhile—and the website and reports lack the burnish of better-known rivals.

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With more and to a greater extent involve for affordable home DNA testing, the field of available tests keeps maturation. Some offer more specialized results or the ability to purchase solely the testing categories you desire, while others might undersell the bigger-name kits on terms.

TellMeGen claims to offer the complete computer software, with some health/medical testing and ancestry results at a single purchase price. However, in practice, the avail is clearly focused very much more on the former than the latter, providing a long list of wellness traits and learned profession conditions with wide-cut detail… and so barely scratching the surface with its simplistic ancestry results.

Note: This review is section of our outflank Deoxyribonucleic acid psychometric test kit roundup . Go there for details approximately competitory products and how we tested them.

DNA collection

You'll penury to mail in a saliva sample for TellMeGen to analyze your DNA. Here's what is in the kit:

• Saliva collection tube with DNA stabilizing solution
• Funnel top
• Plastic grapple case
• Prepaid return label
• Instructions

Collecting a tidy-enough sample for TellMeGen means spitting into the enclosed plastic tube time and time again once more until you satiate it to the line of reasoning (not including bubbles). It took me a couple of solid minutes of conjuring upwards fluids to meet the quota, but leastwise it's a straightforward request.

Saint Andrew the Apostle Hayward

Instructions walk you finished the saliva collection process. Be careful when swapping between the collection tubing's original cap and funnel cap!

Having to unscrew the cap, lie with happening the funnel shape cap, so unscrew the funnel and supercede the seminal cap before mailing adds extra expected for bungling the thermionic valv and possibly losing the free-floating stabilizing solution—so beryllium careful with it. It's non atomic number 3 clever arsenic 23andMe's tube, which has its solution sealed in the funnel cap and releases it into your spittle sample when you securely close it.

Swiftness

TellMeGen estimates that results will be available within cardinal to hexa weeks of receiving the sample. I registered an account and my kit when preparing the sample, but did not pick up any kindly of email alert that my results were available. Fivesome weeks after sending the sample, I logged into my score and found that the kit in reality was not united to the account, despite completing that step during initial enrolment.

Luckily, when I certified the kit again, the results were already available. Unfortunately, I assume't know exactly how long it took due to the kit enrollment mishap, merely the reversal relieve savage inside the estimated window. Relatively, I dispatched 23andMe and AncestryDNA samples back at the same time, and received results from both services in just over two weeks.

Results

TellMeGen is an chromosome DNA test, much like 23andMe, AncestryDNA, and other popular tests, which analyzes the 22 pairs of autosomal chromosomes besides the X and Y gender chromosomes. According to the company, IT can analyze to a higher degree 655,000 single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs)—or DNA episode variations—used to track biological differences also as shared out connections to relatives.

Ancestry is traded dying under the "My Results" section on the TellMeGen internet site, and that might beryllium an indicant of its significance therein particular DNA test. The origin results are incredibly simplistic, unfortunately, with lowercase in the way of interactivity operating room astuteness.

TellMeGen

My ancestry results were much little nuanced with TellMeGen than they were with 23andMe and AncestryDNA's tests.

In my case, the results showed that I am 89 percent British; nearly 9 percent State: Adyghe people; and or so 2 percent French: Basque. Both 23andMe and AncestryDNA likewise pointed to almost 100 percent Northwestern European totals, but neither estimated that the vast bulk of that was British. In fact, both of those tests demonstrated a flock more than nuance in their estimations of my ancestors' origins.

The portion estimates are shown in a graph atop a map, simply you can't really do anything on the map leave out click on the highlighted countries. Turn over to the Details tab and you'll find a bit Thomas More selective information connected each domain—emphasis on "little." Each explanation for my highlighted regions had just two to three sentences of information.

It really pales in comparability to the aforementioned rival services. Click on 23andMe's results and you'll get complete explanations of each region, an interactive mapping with Holocene epoch ancestry info, lots of additional background signal detail and images, and links to research more just about the part. Information technology's a world of difference. TellMeGen has nearly nothing worth digging into. It's very disappointing.

TellMeGen also has nobelium duplicate servicing for copulative with people with similar DNA. And so in terms of learning more about where your ancestors came from or finding long-lost kin, you're better served by other table service such equally 23andMe OR AncestryDNA.

According to TellMeGen, its ancestry information is mainly from Western sandwich Common Market (Iberian and Focal European), with sources including public databases such as the Quality Genome Diversity Send off. TellMeGen analyzes Thomas More than 12,500 SNPs to detect global populations, and plans to continually update its data. New populations and subpopulations will be added in Sep, with the possibility of other features—such equally relative-matching—under considerateness.

Thankfully, TellMeGen provides a fair bit more than information in its wellness-related results, which are split into three categories: Hard Diseases, Inherited Conditions, and Traits. Low-level Tortuous Diseases, TellMeGen shows a list of conditions split between speculative, low-down-risk, and typical-adventure categories, with your risk percentage shown compared to the average.

For example, it says that I am nearly 14 times Sir Thomas More promising to develop restless leg syndrome than the rest of the population. Luckily, that hasn't happened to me—however, at to the lowest degree. But I can click along the listing and read more about what it is, the symptoms, the familial role, and my own technical write up, which highlights each SNP tracked, the genotype the test returned, and what that final result means. It also provides further detail for each SNP, along with a bibliography for anyone looking for farther context of use.

The other categories are similarly careful, simply the website lacks the smoothen and imagery of something like 23andMe, for example. That said, TellMeGen offers a longer list of traits and health conditions that it test for than the 23andMe Health + Ancestry test, but the results are sometimes ambiguous. On occasion, it simply pointed me towards my technical report, which then sometimes gave conflicting information based happening which SNP was tested. In several cases, all of the well-tried SNPs were agreed, yet TellMeGen still didn't provide a conclusive solvent.

TellMeGen

TellMeGen's health results page lets you know what conditions you'Re genetically susceptible to, and how you comparison to the average population.

Both TellMeGen and the 23andMe Health + Ancestry test delivered suchlike results regarding certain traits, such American Samoa likely increased caffeine consumption and unlikeliness to induce an alcohol flush reaction. While TellMeGen's lists are longer, withal, 23andMe's sounded traits are overall more fun and interesting (like "Ability to Match Liquid Pitch" and "Toe Distance Ratio"), positive 23andMe does a often, some better line of work of presenting its results than TellMeGen. You'll typically go a simple wall of text with TellMeGen, while 23andMe has customised graphics all over, along with charts and graphs, and easy digestible chunks of info and data.

Secrecy

When you file a kit, you will need to agree to the informed go for agreement to uphold. The document states that you agree to allow TellMeGen to encounter and analyze your DNA, and ply the results—even if those results prove to "cause situations of emotional strain." You give notice also opt whether to allow your data to be used anonymously for research. That's your call to stimulate.

Your kit has a 12-character alphanumeric code attached to that, and the research lab that analyzes the kit up wish not have access to your characteristic information, including your full mention. Additionally, all fleshly samples are automatically impoverished two months shadowing completion of testing. That's handy, as it means that you do not have to contact client serve to have a sample destroyed, unlike with another services.

Prise

TellMeGen keeps things simple with its pricing approach, selling a unary kit for $169 through its website. There's no add-on military service operating room separate versions targeted toward different types of results: IT's one buy out for the full set of results. That's cheaper than 23andMe's Health + Ancestry trialRemove non-merchandise link, which is $199, but there's a big difference in the experience given TellMeGen's barebones website and reports.

As mentioned, TellMeGen is significantly more focused connected the health side of the DNA testing equation, with the ancestry component coming off every bit a very minor appurtenance. Hopefully the ancestry component of the religious service will personify further enhanced over time and users' results will comprise updated with farther detail and refinement. Opportune now, it's non much of a selling point, but the wellness results are wide-ranging and unputdownable.

Editor's note: Because online services are often iterative, gaining new features and performance improvements o'er time, this review is subject field to change systematic to accurately reflect the current state of the service. Any changes to text or our final review finding of fact will be noted at the tip of this article.

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Andrew Hayward is a Michigan-based games, apps, and gadgets writer whose work has been conspicuous in more than 70 publications. He's also a work-at-home papa to an indocile quartet-year-old.

Source: https://www.pcworld.com/article/397839/tellmegen-dna-test-review.html

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