"Both clinical and direct-to-consumer genetic testing have become significantly less costly and more common, providing people with access to a wealth of information about everything from their ethnicity and family lineage to their risk for certain diseases and how they will respond to medications such as blood thinners and antidepressants.

But before you decide to take the plunge into your gene pool, there are a number of issues you should carefully consider. Genetic testing can have unintended consequences, both personal and medical, so it's wise to weigh the value of any information you may gain against the potential issues that the testing may raise."

Miles J. Varn is chief executive officer, PinnacleCare, and can be reached on LinkedIn.

He shares his story and discusses his KevinMD article, "Genetic testing: Could there be unintended consequences?" (https://www.kevinmd.com/blog/2020/04/genetic-testing-could-there-be-unintended-consequences.html)