Rob Abrams did. His wife, Caitlin, couldn’t have been happier. She liked it so much she gave Rob the same thing for Christmas. “It was,” Caitlin says, “the most nerdy gift I have ever given and received.”

The package — a small tube, removable cap, and sealable spit funnel — was a genetic testing kit from California company 23andMe. The Abramses spent $299 on each kit in 2011. Once the couple mailed in their tubes, 23andMe tested their saliva for hundreds of genetic markers. The markers pointed toward clinically useless but nevertheless interesting ancestral information (look, Caitlin had 2.9 percent Neanderthal DNA!). They also pointed toward dozens of potential health risks. [Read more…]

If you are lucky, you’re on your way to a diagnosis and a path to feeling better. How much more personal does it get? In fact, much more. In theory, astonishingly more.

Most often today, your treatment plan doesn’t have all that much to do with you specifically. It’s identical to what doctors would hand over to essentially anyone with the same condition — your neighbor, the hot dog vendor at Wrigley Field, or the prime minister of Bangladesh. [Read more…]