- They are not a diagnosis. They estimate the genetic component of your likelihood of developing certain conditions; they do not take account of your lifestyle, environment or family history.
- False positives and false negatives can occur. Failure to detect a variant does not rule out having it or developing the condition.
- Rare variants. Genotyping chips are not reliable for very rare variants, such as many of those associated with hereditary conditions. Any relevant finding must be confirmed in a clinical laboratory.
- Pregnancy and newborn babies. This is not a prenatal test and does not replace newborn screening: it cannot assess the health of a foetus or diagnose a newborn baby.
- Pharmacogenetics. The test does not analyse every variant that influences the response to a medicine or predict your response with certainty. Before changing treatment, your doctor must assess the results and, if they consider it necessary, confirm them with a clinical pharmacogenetic test. Changing your treatment based solely on these results may be harmful.
- Ancestry. Many studies have been carried out in specific populations, so some results may be less accurate depending on your ancestry.