Likewise, the popularity of home testing is soaring as tests for more conditions become available. With a small sample of blood, urine, saliva, or stool, you can check everything from your triglyceride levels to whether your genes determine your tolerance for a strong cup of coffee. Sales of these tests are expected to exceed $20 billion worldwide in 2017 and continue to grow by 28% a year through 2022, according to BCC Research. Convenience is a big part of the appeal. There’s no need to sit all afternoon at the doctor’s office to take a 5-minute test or wait for results. “People want to take charge of their own care. They don’t want to be hostage to medical appointments,” says Eric Topol, a cardiologist and director of the Scripps Translational Science Institute. “It’s a great way to democratize medicine.” The low cost of many tests is also a draw, especially for people who don’t have health insurance or whose health insurance plans have a high deductible or copay. And for many, another major advantage of home testing is privacy, particularly for tests to diagnose HIV, hepatitis C, and sexually transmitted infections. (Discover the ONE simple, natural solution that can help you reverse chronic inflammation and heal more than 45 diseases. Try The Whole Body Cure today!) One crucial question is whether these tests provide accurate results people can use to improve their health. The best tests have solid research to back up their claims of accuracy and are produced by companies that aren’t using the tests to sell other products (such as vitamins). We asked experts to weigh in on a variety of popular, easily available tests and recommend which ones are worth the time and money.
These Tests Make the Grade
Experts say the tests in this group are accurate and relatively easy to use, and can point people toward getting the right medical care when they need it. TEST: Urinary Tract Infection How It Works: You test a urine sample with special strips. Expert Tip: Choose a kit that measures both leukocytes (white blood cells that are markers of infection) and nitrites (a signal that the infection is bacterial). If both are positive, it’s a sure sign of a UTI, which requires medical treatment. (These are the six UTI symptoms all women should know.) TEST: Yeast Infection How It Works: Insert a swab into your vagina, then check the swab for color changes that indicate a bacterial infection. The test doesn’t directly check for yeast, since yeast is present in all healthy vaginas. But if the test is negative, a yeast infection may be responsible for symptoms of itching and discharge. Both types of infection require treatment. MORE: 5 Foods That Prevent Yeast Infections Expert Tip: This test is helpful for women who’ve never had a vaginal infection and have no way of knowing whether yeast or bacteria are responsible. Women who’ve been diagnosed with a prior yeast infection generally recognize the signs of new infections. We asked a doctor: Can a yeast infection go away on it’s own? TEST: Strep Throat How It Works: Swab the back of your throat, mix the swab with the chemicals provided, and read the results. (Not strep? It could be one of these nine reasons your throat is killing you.) Expert Tip: “Make sure to get the swab far back in the throat to get a good sample,” advises Carl Olden, a senior family physician at Pacific Crest Family Medicine. “Otherwise, you may get a false negative.”
Harry Campbell
These Tests Pass, But. . .
The results are accurate, but the tests may come with complicated instructions. In addition, some doctors question whether most people should monitor these health factors on their own. TEST: Vitamin D How It Works: Send a small blood sample to a lab. Expert Tip: Since there’s disagreement among experts about what constitutes a healthy vitamin D level, results of this test may be difficult to interpret. Because various health organizations list “normal” levels of vitamin D as anywhere from 20 to 50 ng/mL, a huge percentage of the population could be tagged as deficient. Says Clifford Rosen, a professor of medicine at Tufts University School of Medicine: “If you’re worried about your vitamin D levels, have them checked professionally.” (Here are 5 signs of vitamin D deficiency to look out for.) TEST: Glucose How It Works: You place a drop of blood on a test strip and insert the strip into a glucometer (purchased separately from the test strips). Your blood sugar reading appears on the screen in a few seconds. Expert Tip: Monitoring your blood glucose is important if you’ve been diagnosed with diabetes, says Rhonda Bentley-Lewis, an endocrinologist and diabetes specialist at Massachusetts General Hospital. This monitoring can also be motivational for people diagnosed with prediabetes, meaning their blood sugar is above the normal range but not high enough for an official diabetes diagnosis. PREVENTION PREMIUM: 4 Steps To Reverse Diabetes Naturally But blood glucose monitoring is not generally recommended for the “worried well”–people who want to detect blood sugar rises early so they can make lifestyle changes to avoid progressing to prediabetes. For otherwise healthy adults without prediabetes, American Diabetes Association guidelines recommend having a doctor test at age 45 and then every 3 years (more often for those with risk factors). TEST: Cholesterol How It Works: All cholesterol tests require a drop of blood. With some, you look for a color change or match a test strip to a numbered chart; others include a meter for repeated self-testing. Expert Tip: If you’re trying to improve your cholesterol levels through diet and exercise, tracking at home can help inspire you, says Haitham Ahmed, a preventive cardiologist at Cleveland Clinic. But some tests give you only a total cholesterol reading, which doctors say is not nearly as useful as knowing the breakdown of HDL (“good”), LDL (“bad”) cholesterol, and triglycerides. The most accurate tests, according to the FDA, are those labeled “traceable to a program of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.” (This is exactly what one woman ate to get off her cholesterol meds.)
Harry Campbell
Skip These
These conditions call for a doctor’s care, not home testing. TEST: Allergies How It Works: Send a blood or hair sample to a lab and receive results for common allergens (cats, dust, pollen). Expert Tip: Using hair samples to test for allergies has been proven unreliable. But even home tests that require a blood sample may not provide accurate information, as some measure a different immunoglobulin (a type of antibody) than the one used in standard medical tests. “All allergy testing should be guided by your medical history, which is why you need to have it done by a doctor,” says Neil Kao, an allergist in Greenville, SC. MORE: I Was Misdiagnosed With An Allergy And Panic Attacks Until An X-Ray Finally Revealed The Real Problem TEST: Thyroid Hormones How It Works: Send a blood sample to a lab, which checks the level of thyroid-stimulating hormone. Some home tests also measure the thyroid hormones T3, T4, and TOP. Expert Tip: Thyroid testing is tricky, says Jason C. Baker, an endocrinologist at Weill Cornell Medical Center. Results can vary depending on how the lab handles a sample, and interpreting results can be complicated even when they’re reliable. A health care practitioner should check your numbers and help figure out your symptoms. (Keep your thyroid healthy with these three tips.)
Grade Pending
These tests are new and promising, but experts would like some questions answered before endorsing them. TEST: Nutrigenomics How It Works: These tests analyze your genes and aim to tell you which foods you should eat to control your weight and prevent cancer and other diseases. You send a sample of saliva to a lab, which checks for variations in genes that influence your metabolism (not just how quickly your body turns food to energy, but even things like how rapidly you metabolize caffeine). Expert Tip: These tests sound intriguing, but “we don’t have the scientific knowledge to provide this information to everybody yet,” says Jose M. Ordovas, director of the nutrition and genomics laboratory at Tufts University. The results should be interpreted with an expert who can analyze your information and provide advice. MORE: 7 Ways To Prevent Breast Cancer From Coming Back TEST: DNA How It Works: Rub the inside of your cheek with a cotton swab and send the swab to a lab for analysis. Some home DNA kits check for your family ancestry, and others now tell you whether you carry genes predisposing you to drug sensitivities and certain diseases, including Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s. (Find out why one man got tested for the Alzheimer’s gene in his 30s.) Expert Tip: Think before you order. It can be interesting to learn how many genes you inherited from Neanderthal ancestors or that your heritage isn’t exactly what you thought. But Mary Freivogel, president of the National Society of Genetic Counselors, warns that learning about your genetic risk of illness can be confusing and that results are difficult to interpret without professional help. If you’re interested in genetic testing, consider having it done professionally and scheduling an appointment with a genetic counselor. It’s not labeled “FDA-approved.” Tests with this label have been reviewed by the Food and Drug Administration for accuracy, ease of use, and easy-to-understand results. (Be careful! Make sure you’re not eating these six FDA-approved additives.) It touts research that hasn’t been proved. To check, start with a government website (.gov) or a nonprofit medical group (.org or .edu) associated with the condition you’re testing for. It’s linked to the sale of other products, such as supplements. A vitamin test, for example, may set an artificially high level as normal if the aim is to encourage vitamin sales. Much of the support for the test, on the package or on the website, comes from personal testimonials. When those accounts, often dramatic, are the only evidence offered of a test’s effectiveness, consider that a red flag.
