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.