Trying to lose weight? Don’t expect help from a personal genetics test

There are [genetic] tests tailored to tell you about your diet, your fitness, your complexion—even your wine preference.

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But researchers will tell you to approach lifestyle-tailored testing kits with extreme skepticism. “What you see in the consumer genetics market is that legitimate genetic findings, often from studies with very large sample sizes, are being turned around and marketed to people in a way that implies it’s going to be actionable for individuals,” says Harvard geneticist Robert Green.

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[S]cientists led by Christopher Gardner, director of nutrition studies at the Stanford Prevention Research Center, published one of the most rigorous investigations to date on whether dieters can use personal DNA results to identify more effective weight-loss strategies

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[T]he results, which appear in this week’s issue of the Journal of American Medicine, found no association between test subjects’ genetic profiles and their success with either program; test subjects lost the same amount of weight, regardless of which diet they were assigned. And study participants who were assigned diets that “matched” their genetic profile fared no better than those who weren’t.

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A lot of people hear “genetics” and think “destiny,” but the vast majority of the time, that’s not how genes work. Which means that the vast majority of the time, you don’t need a personal genetics test to take charge of your future.

Read full, original post: You don’t need a personal genetics test to take charge of your health