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Almost exactly a year ago, 23andMe earned the right to tell people what diseases might be lurking in their DNA. Since then, the consumer genetic testing company has turned tubes of spit into health reports for thousands of its customers. You can learn how your genes might predispose you to eight diseases with a well-known genetic component—things like Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s, and most recently, breast and ovarian cancers.
But these limited genetic red flags are rare enough that for most people, there’s not much for 23andMe to report back.
Lots of people, though, get migraines. And allergies. And depression. 23andMe says it wants to help them, too—not by extracting insights from their DNA, but by harvesting the wisdom of the crowd. For the last few weeks, the company has been quietly rolling out a new health hub, where customers can share information about how they manage 18 common health conditions. They get to see which treatments work best, according to other users’ personal reports. And 23andMe gets a bunch of data it didn’t have before.
It’s not hard to see who’s...