Success story:

I think it's important to know as much as you can, so you can make decisions that will enable you to control your life, how long you're going to live, and especially what the quality of your life is going to be.

-Tony,

retired attorney

Conditions and medication responses

Navigenics analyzes your DNA for genetic risk markers associated with a wide variety of important health conditions and medication responses

Health Conditions

Medications

An investment in your future

Navigenics Health Compass is an extensive, health-focused set of genetic analysis services, offering genetic insights now and in the future. Our analysis includes your genetic predispositions for all of the conditions and medication sensitivities listed above, and then enables ongoing updates to bring you new genetic results for as long as you subscribe. At any step in the process, you'll be able to speak with your own personal genetics expert, our board-certified Genetic Counselors who can help you understand your results and motivate you to work with your doctor on next steps.

Genetic science continues to advance at a rapid rate. As new links between genetic markers and health are discovered, we add new conditions and medications to our genetic analysis. It’s a key benefit of Health Compass: Your genetic test results will be continually updated with new genetic information as long as you subscribe.

Learn more about the genetic testing services offered with Navigenics Health Compass >

How we choose

We use rigorous standards for deciding which health conditions and medications to include in your genetic analysis.

At Navigenics we empower you with genetic insights that will help motivate you to take control of your health, which is why we focus on health conditions that you can do something about. To be added to our genetic analysis services, a health condition and the science behind it must meet our strict guidelines:

  • The condition has to be medically relevant.
  • The condition must be one that you and your doctor can act on.
  • Research findings from multiple well-designed studies have to show consistent, reliable, and significant association between a genetic marker and a health condition.

Medications must also meet strict guidelines:

  • For the medications included, the risks must be ones that you or your doctor can act on. Your risk of side effects can be minimized or drug effectiveness can be maximized by using a customized dose, for example. Or in some cases, you might be better suited to another medication altogether.  
  • Research findings from multiple well-designed studies have to show consistent, reliable, and significant association between a genetic marker and a medication outcome.
  • The genetic marker connected with this medication can be tested using the DNA in a person’s saliva. Some other types of medications tests might use DNA from tissue related to a disease, such as cancer cells or harmful viruses. Navigenics only tests DNA that can be obtained from a person’s saliva sample.

As a result, fewer than five in 100 of the links between genes and conditions and medications reported in scientific research are accepted for our genetic analysis.

For instance, here are some of the traits and conditions our service does not presently assess:

  • Brain cancer. While many candidate genes have been studied over the years, more research is needed on the genetic risk markers for brain tumors before they meet our standards for inclusion in our genetic testing services.
  • Schizophrenia. Recent research into the genetic risk markers for this mental illness has yielded inconsistent results.
  • Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (Lou Gehrig’s disease, or ALS). Some scientists think there are many biological pathways that lead to the disease – making a scan for genetic risk markers much more challenging. Several such studies have been carried out, with inconsistent results, and currently there is nothing that can be done to prevent this progressive disease.