23andme DNA Testing
 

My daughters bought me a 23andme Health and Ancestry DNA kit for my birthday a few weeks ago. I followed the directions precisely and sent in my saliva sample to be processed. A few days later they notified me that my DNA sample could not be processed. There was not enough DNA in my spit to meet their standards. What they told me was that the DNA comes mostly from white blood cells and dead skin in the saliva. My sample didn't contain enough. They are sending me a second kit to try again. I get one more shot at it. If I fail to provide enough DNA for a second time I will be offered a refund and then be blocked from ever submitting to 23andme again.

I have a sneaking suspicion that this will happen again on try #2 if I don’t change something up. On that first sample I did the hour of no eating/drinking before I filled the sample tube to the line as instructed. I will just be doing the same thing again on the second try. The problem may be that I have never had a healthier mouth. Since going LCHF plaque & tarter buildup has become a thing of the past. My gums are totally healthy. My dental hygienist marvels at how my gums never bleed at all as she goes to town cleaning and flossing my teeth. She says that I'm the only one of her patients like this. Everyone bleeds at least a little. I always reminder her “Who of your patients does not eat sugar or starch?" Anyway, I have a darn healthy mouth these days. I know because it hasn't always been this way. I have plenty of fillings and once had plaque/tarter so bad that my hygienist wanted me to come in every 3 months to have my teeth cleaned.

So I wonder if my WOE was my problem with the 23andme sample. Will my clean, happy, gum disease free mouth ever yield a saliva sample with enough dead skin & white blood cells to process my DNA? I don't know, but I guess that I will find out in a few weeks. I can’t do anything about the white blood cells, but perhaps I can scrape my cheeks some in hopes of getting more dead skin.

Have any of you long-term LCHF/Keto members ever had a 23andme done only to have your sample rejected? Did you have any problems with the resubmission? I am curious to have this done. I want this second sample to be accepted. I don't want to get band for life.

Try brushing your inner cheeks with a soft toothbrush before letting saliva collect in your mouth for your sample. Once saliva collects, swish the saliva around in your mouth before spitting into the test tube.

The test I and family members took, 7 and counting, used cotton swabs and instructed us to rub them against our inner cheeks to collect cells.

We had no failures. We used family DNA.com

Good luck.

I cant speak to the DNA testing as i have concerns about it, but I TOO have healthy gums and no bleeding at cleanings.

IF I did the testing, I would use a fake name or a number and use a friend's address.....

How can they ban you really, use a nom de plum.

I scraped my tongue and the sides of my mouth with my teeth and held the saliva in my mouth for a few minutes before spitting into the tube.

That’s odd. Maybe your sample leaked?
I didn’t have any issues with my sample, just spit in the tube and mailed it in. Got my results without an issue.

My experience with 23andme went without a hitch. Since then, I requested my account be deleted because I fear they are selling data to insurance companies. Maybe I'm just paranoid.

I ran my data through Promethease, downloaded the report. It was comforting to find my APOe readings. Now I have the 23andme data as well as the Promethease data.

My dentist switched to low carb/no grain after he saw my teeth. It really is dramatic. I would follow the suggestions of the other people and scrape a little.

I had concerns over privacy but then my mother did Ancestry and that's half my DNA right there so I did it despite my concerns. The reality is we leave our DNA everywhere we go.

This is a concern of mine as well. Don't think you're being paranoid, just careful, as in the environment of our mixed up understanding of health and the inability to reach consensus on valid health markers, there's always the danger of medical insurers assessing risk (because that's what they do) in the context of these current and conflicting health assumptions.

I just recently did a test with Ancestry. It's also a spit test and I had no problems with it.

Curious what everyone experienced from their DNA testing. Mine was surprising! It changed my experience of my identity somewhat which I found to be an odd experience.

My DNA was as expected. I had already done a lot of family history research, so no big surprises!

I was surprised how few of certain lines came through (assuming the testing is accurate). I mean, if you look at me you can tell, but I had come to form an identity around genetics that were minimal. What I identified with as a kid was the strongest, though, based on my one living grandparent. Even though she was half Irish herself with the other half English and married someone English and my mother ended up with a lot of English/Welsh genetics due to that, I got the Irish genes (52%) and not the English (5%). One the other side, I ended up very lopsided, too. I am fluent in one ancestral language because I learned it as an adult but very minimally genetically connected (also obvious if you look at me but it was still surprising).

As an African American I was surprised/not at how much European heritage I had and how minuscule the Native American heritage was.

A lot of lighter skinned/straighter haired African Americans claim Native American heritage--it's a myth; a denial of the routine sexual abuse of slave women.

For years before routine DNA testing became available retail, when my cousins would trot out how they had this or that tribe's blood, I would retort to my cousins, "that's not Indian blood, that's Massa's blood.

During Genealogy research I reached out to my paternal line slave owner's family, a very prestigious slave-holding family that traces its roots to English aristocracy, as family lore had it that my many times Great grandmother was the "unofficial" co-wife of the owner, starting at age 13, and had many children by him. Before DNA testings popularity they all denied the story and refused DNA testings to confirm or refute.

Fast forward to the rise in popularity of DNA testing sites and suddenly I had countless relatives from the slave owner's line.

For me, having a distanced and inquiring bent, that truth doesn't hurt...it's just historical fact and validation of family lore.

Luckily my father is my father and my brothers and sisters are full siblings. Should I say luckily? lol.

But I think some people might receive surprises they are not prepared for or accepting of.

I was amazed at just how ethnically mixed I am. Or is that nationally mixed? Or just how widespread my heritage is. I don't think there is a state or continent, including Asia that a DNA link hasn't popped up from.

I received my 2nd try 23andme kit yesterday and sent in the new sample today. I used a plastic spoon to scrape around my cheeks & tongue before spitting into the tube. Last time my spit was crystal clear. This time it was cloudy. Hopefully I managed to get some DNA in there this time. I'll know in a few weeks.

I am looking forward to review the health related reports, including APOe. I asked for all of the reports. If there is a bad egg in there somewhere, I see no reason not to know about it. My only concern is that health insurance companies could use this data to assess risk. But I worry about that for my cholesterol tests already.

But I have to admit that I am more curious about my family tree. I know where I think I come from (Irish, English, Dutch and German surnames from my grandparents). But there are also rumors of native American and African American blood on my mother's side. Are they true or just tall tales passed down?

My family rumor was of Sephardic Jewish ancestry. Completely a family myth! Not Jewish at all, even the more likely Ashkenazi.