Product specialist Alex provides this walkthrough guide on how to read and get the most from your FitnessGenes DNA reports.

If you’re reading this, it’s likely that you’re about to start your DNA journey with FitnessGenes. We’re thrilled to have you join us and look forward to delivering personal insights that will help you achieve your health and fitness goals – whatever they are.

The purpose of this blog is to introduce you to the structure of your DNA reports and reveal how your genetic insights and recommendations are delivered. We hope that this will help you to maximise the value of the results. We’ll walk through each section in turn: your Result, the Members Result Distribution, your Insights, your Actions, and the Additional Content. There’s plenty to cover, so let’s jump straight in.

Your Result

At the top of each report, you’ll find your personal result. This is accompanied by a coloured icon and a personalised result statement. The number of possible results for each report varies depending on the number of genetic and lifestyle factors analysed

For example:

1. Muscle Performance (ACTN3). Single gene report. 2 possible results: Supportive Trait and High Priority.

2. Gut Inflammation Risk. Multiple gene and lifestyle factor report. 5possible results: Supportive Trait, Low Priority, Moderate Priority, HighPriority, and Very High Priority.

Most of your results are framed within the context of relative risk, indicated by the colour of the icon that accompanies them. The key below sets out each risk-based result and what it means. Don’t worry if you don’t come across every one of these in your own reports – which results appear depends entirely on your personal genetics and lifestyle:

A smaller set of results are accompanied by a blue icon and aren’t based on relative risk at all. These are information-based results – rather than flagging a risk to manage, they tell you something specific about yourself, such as your optimal training structure.

Members Result Distribution

You’ll find all the possible result permutations for each report within the Members Result Distribution graph. Here you can see how common or rare your personal result is relative to the rest of the FitnessGenes population.

As this data is based on those who have taken a FitnessGenes test rather than the general or global population, the result percentages may shift over time as more people receive their results.

Insights

Your insights provide the detail behind your result. It’s here that you’ll discover your personal gene variants and how they’re impacting your health and fitness. The insights are even more specific than your personal result – delivering further granularity depending on your individual genes and lifestyle.

For example, the Gut Inflammation Risk has a total of 65 unique sets of insights across the five possible results! This is because a different combination of genetic and lifestyle factors can place two separate individuals within the same result band.

Actions

This is the real value of the service. Information on its own only goes so far – what really matters is knowing what to do with it. That’s why each of our reports includes positive daily steps you can take to help manage your risk or build on beneficial results.

Actions are grouped by five distinct categories: Exercise, Nutrition, Behaviour, Supplements, and Lifestyle. Our in-house team source the actions from peer-reviewed research, following evidence rather than popular trends.

There’s no need to follow every action across all 180+ reports – in fact, you’re not expected to. Instead, you can choose the actions that fit your current lifestyle and training experience. Selecting just one or two actions from your highest-priority reports is enough to start making meaningful, sustainable progress towards your health and fitness goals.

Additional Content

The final section to your reports is related items. This includes products, articles, recipes, and traits relevant to your report.

If you’re interested in exploring the original research our team have reviewed in building your report, follow the links provided within the Articles dropdown. Recipes that include ingredients included within your actions are a great way to start tailoring your nutrition to your DNA, while you can often find member-exclusive discounts on relevant partner products, including supplements.

How to prioritise your reports

With the wide variety of reports now available to you, it’s important that you prioritise them based on your overall goals and personal results. For example, if you’re an athlete looking to optimise performance, following actions from Appetite Control reports that are Moderate or Low Priority are unlikely to have the highest overall impact.

Instead, start with the report categories that are most aligned with your personal goals. From these report categories, focus on actioning your Critical Attention, Very High Priority, and High Priority results. Once you have mitigated their effect, you can look to maximise the benefits of your Optimising Factor and Supportive Trait results.

What happens next

Over the coming weeks, we’ll highlight several reports identified by our science team that we believe everyone should be aware of. This will ensure that you don’t miss critical health and fitness guidance.

In the meantime, why not explore your free lifestyle-based reports? Available to you right now, these reports follow the same structure you’ve just read about. Familiarising yourself with these is the perfect way to get comfortable navigating the platform, so that when your personal DNA results arrive, you’ll know exactly where to start.

Our in-house support team are also on hand to answer any questions you have when navigating your personal DNA reports. Reach them by emailing into support@fitnessgenes.com (available Mon-Fri, 09:00-17:00 UK).