Health Testing Reviews for DNAFit

Ranked 8th out of 82 in
Health Testing >
If you use the Web App
Web
App
From £39.00
If you buy the Kit
Kit
From £89.00

At a Glance

Editor's Rating:
4.5 out of 5 stars
Customer Service:
5 out of 5 stars
Clarity of Results:
5 out of 5 stars
References Cited:
3 out of 5 stars
Value for Money:
4.5 out of 5 stars

Summary

I felt that taking the DNAFit Diet Fitness Pro test was really worthwhile. The reports included an abundance of manageable and easily understandable information about my DNA and also provided focussed and implementable advice, which wasn’t just based on eating less and exercising more. I was particularly impressed with the strength of the connections DNAFit made between my genetics and the practical implications the results might have in terms of my diet and fitness.

At times it was slightly difficult to navigate the wealth of information included in the reports, but this was a minor issue in an otherwise excellent experience. I would recommend this test to anyone interested in improving their health and fitness, regardless of whether you’re a complete beginner or training for a marathon.

Full Review

Founded in 2013, DNAFit have quickly become one of the most prominent companies in the health and fitness DNA testing market. They have formed partnerships with sports clubs, gyms and health organisations around the world, giving coaches and trainers the chance to work with their clients’ natural strengths and weaknesses. As well as offering their own DNA kit, DNAFit gives customers the chance to upload their 23andMe or Ancestry DNA data to find out about how their genetic diet and fitness predispositions. The company has been mentioned in several high-profile media publications as well, from the BBC to Vogue.

DNAFit offers six different DNA tests, each with an ‘analysis only’ counterpart for those with their raw DNA data, and all with a focus on diet, fitness or a combination of the two. With all this considered, we were excited to give it a go!

Product Expectations

It was clear from the outset that the tests offered by DNAFit were aimed at using my DNA to provide insights into my diet and fitness. The three things that I might find out about with a test from DNAFit was made immediately clear: ‘Fitness&Diet’, ‘Sports’ and ‘Wellness’. As someone who enjoys exercise, but prefers to run than to take part in specific sports, I was most interested in exploring how my DNA might impact my fitness and diet, so clicked to find out more about this type of test.

This section explained what to expect from the process, via a step-by-step diagram and also a video which told me a bit about DNAFit and the process of testing, from taking the sample to it being analysed in the lab and receiving results.

There was also a whole page dedicated to explaining the science behind the test. This was really comprehensive, including not only a list of the genes analysed in the test, but information about each gene, how they chose which to include and how they came to conclusions about the different variants of each gene. There was even a sample selection of some of the scientific journal articles that were used to develop the test. It was also made clear that genetics don’t define everything about us, and that environmental factors play just as an important role in our fitness. I was really impressed by how well explained this section was, whilst remaining understandable and user-friendly.

Looking through the terms and conditions, I was slightly confused about how DNAFit would use my data for research, as most of the document talked about how it could be passed on as aggregated data to third parties for research if I gave my consent. However, there was then a line that said “If you do not give consent for your Genetic and/or Self-Reported Information to be used in DNAFit Research or in the Research Portal, we can still use your Genetic and/or Self-Reported Information for R&D, as described above. This may include disclosing Aggregated Genetic and Self-Reported Information to third-party research partners.” This seemed to mean that regardless of my consent, my data could be passed on to third parties and it was also made clear that I would not be compensated for any discoveries that resulted from research using this data.

Ordering experience

When it came to ordering, I entered my shipping and billing details and was pleased to see that shipping was free for those in either the UK or the US. I paid via PayPal, but also had the choice of using a credit card. As I was entering my details, a notification popped up, offering me 10% off my purchase if I signed up to the DNAFit newsletter. This was great, as I signed up and was given the offer code there and then to use for my purchase!

Results section

Just one week after I’d sent my samples back to the lab, via the pre-paid return envelope, I received an email notifying me that my results were available. I was informed that I’d be able to log in and view them online but could also download them as PDFs. When I logged in, I saw that the results were split into three files, my ‘Fitness Report’, my ‘Diet Report’ and an ‘Infographic Report’.

Results section: Infographic Report

I correctly assumed that the Infographic Report would provide me with an overview of my results, so chose to look at that first. This report consisted of one page that summarised both my fitness and diet reports, though the latter took up the majority of the page. You can see a section of it below:

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A section of my Infographic Report.

A section of my Infographic Report.

The page was bright and included colourful diagrams corresponding to each of my results. This made it really easy to quickly look at all of the results, and gave me an idea of what my strengths and weaknesses were before reading about them in more detail in the other reports. Among many other things, I found out that I had a high sensitivity to carbohydrates, but in contrast wasn’t very sensitive to saturated fats. I was intrigued and wanted to find out more about what this might mean practically, so moved on to the Diet Report.

Diet Report

I decided to download the Diet Report as a PDF. There were 12 results in total: ‘Carbohydrate Sensitivity’, ‘Saturated Fat Sensitivity’, ‘Detoxification Ability’, ‘Anti-Oxidant Need’, ‘Omega-3 Need’, ‘Vitamin B Requirements’, ‘Vitamin D Requirements’, ‘Salt Sensitivity’, ‘Alcohol Response’, ‘Caffeine Sensitivity’, ‘Lactose Intolerance’ and ‘Coeliac Predisposition’. Each section was quite long, and because of the relatively high number of results I was surprised that there was no contents page.

It started with a professional-looking title page, that was personalised with my name, date of birth, sample number and the date of testing. The next few pages were dedicated to describing what to expect from the report and explanations of technical words I might come across, such as ‘gene polymorphisms’. I found this and the accompanying key, showing how to interpret my results, really useful. This introduction was followed by a page of terms and conditions, which struck me as a little oddly placed.

The report itself started with a ‘Brief Overview of Your Key Results’, shown below.

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The summary of my Diet Report results.

The summary of my Diet Report results.

I thought this was a great feature, giving me an idea of which results to pay particular attention to. I liked that it was more focussed than the Infographic Report but was still brief enough to allow me to quickly assess. There were some, such as ‘Lactose tolerant’ that had obvious consequences (I can drink milk without adverse effects), but others were less obvious (what does it mean to be a fast metaboliser of caffeine?), so I was interested to read more in the full report.

The first detailed result was ‘Carbohydrate Sensitivity’ which is shown below.

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My Carbohydrate Sensitivity result.

My Carbohydrate Sensitivity result.

This section provided more detail about my high sensitivity to carbohydrates in a way that made the information manageable, using a scale to show how I compared to others and a table to show each of the genes analysed against my variants and the effects. This table initially looked a little complex, but once I referred back to the key at the beginning of the report, it was really simple to interpret. This result also included personalised ‘Action Points’, for example suggesting I only consume 6% of my daily calories as refined carbohydrates. Beneath this was a thorough, but again not overwhelming, explanation of the different types of carbohydrates, and a page about what GI and GL were. Finally, there was a table with examples of carbohydrates with their GI and GL values.

I was impressed with the extensive amount of information provided, just for that one result, but was even more impressed that at no point did it seem too complex or scientific.

Each result after this was similar – I found out that I needed to increase my intake of antioxidants to compensate for my reduced capacity to neutralise free radicals, and that I had an increased sensitivity to salt, so should cut my intake. Once I’d gone through all of the results I felt that I hadn’t just learnt about my own dietary needs, but had gained a lot of valuable information about nutrition in general.

Results section: Fitness Report

After looking through my Diet Report, I moved on to finding out about how my DNA might affect various aspects of my fitness. The following four sections were used to present the results: ‘Power/Endurance Profile’, ‘Your Aerobic Potential (VO2 Max)’, ‘Recovery’ and ‘Injury Risk’ and the main conclusions were summarised in my ‘DNA Overview’, shown below.

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My fitness report ‘DNA Overview’.

My fitness report ‘DNA Overview’.

I initially thought that the relatively small number of sections might mean the report wouldn’t provide much information, but found that as I went through it, each result covered many areas of fitness. Together, the sections provided plenty of information about my results, how to interpret them and advice on how to act upon them.

This report started in a similar way to the Diet Report, but the results themselves were laid out slightly differently. The first result, my ‘Power/Endurance Profile’, was about how suited I was likely to be to power or endurance activities when exercising. A part of this result is shown below.

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A part of my Power/Endurance Profile.

A part of my Power/Endurance Profile.

I liked that this result, as well as the others in the Fitness Report, contained many of the same elements that I’d felt made the Diet Report so valuable, but were adapted to best suit the fitness results. As well as a diagram showing my ‘Personal Power/Endurance Response’ there was a table similar to those used in the Diet Report, showing the exact genes that had been analysed, my alleles and the effect they were likely to have.

The examples of different power and endurance activities also really helped to connect my genetic results with my fitness routine. I was initially disappointed to find out that I was more likely to respond well to power activities, as I enjoy running and regularly run 10K to work. However, there was a note at the bottom of the page that explained that the results shouldn’t change my fitness goals but help me to train for them in a more efficient way. It made me realise that I’ve done really well to keep up long-distance running, and that by incorporating more power activities into training for it, I could improve faster.

The rest of the results went over other aspects of fitness, such as my likelihood of sustaining a soft tissue injury when doing sport and ways to recover quickest, according to my DNA. I was particularly interested to read about and calculate my VO2 max score, which I learnt is used to assess how effectively my body uses oxygen during exercise. Whilst my natural score was intermediate, I was happy to find that when I calculated mine it was actually higher than average!

Summary

I felt that taking the DNAFit Diet Fitness Pro test was really worthwhile. The reports included an abundance of manageable and easily understandable information about my DNA and also provided focussed and implementable advice, which wasn’t just based on eating less and exercising more. I was particularly impressed with the strength of the connections DNAFit made between my genetics and the practical implications the results might have in terms of my diet and fitness.

At times it was slightly difficult to navigate the wealth of information included in the reports, but this was a minor issue in an otherwise excellent experience. I would recommend this test to anyone interested in improving their health and fitness, regardless of whether you’re a complete beginner or training for a marathon.

Please note that we were invited to take this test free of charge.

See a description of this DNA test from DNAFit >