Key Takeaways:
- Genetic testing for weight loss has several challenges that make it inaccessible for most people, including its high cost and limited capacity to provide actionable information.
- The research on direct-to-consumer genetic tests does not support their health and wellness claims around weight loss.
- Clinical trials have found very little difference in weight loss between those with and without a gene variant linked to obesity after weight loss interventions.
- Nutrition and physical activity are far more important than genetics when it comes to weight, and don’t require you to take a test before starting.
- Poor gut health may be a factor in people with unwanted weight gain or who have difficulty losing weight—an unhealthy gut can also leave you feeling fatigued and unmotivated to exercise.
- Probiotics can help to create a healthier gut environment, which may support a healthy metabolism.
Rather than spending your health care dollars on a weight loss DNA test that’s unnecessary and unhelpful, I would rather you use well-studied interventions that are known to be effective for weight loss like a well-balanced diet plan and exercise. These are the same interventions that will benefit you the most in the end, whether you’ve had genetic testing or not. So, rather than going the genetic testing route, you can personalize tried and true weight loss solutions like improving your gut health, practicing resistance training, spending time in nature, and creating a sleep routine, which will save you time, money, and the stress of trying to interpret genetic test results.
Genetic Testing 101

Generally speaking, genetic testing is a DNA test that uses a sample of your blood, skin, hair, saliva, or a pregnant woman’s amniotic fluid to look for changes in genes, chromosomes, or proteins [6].
- Breast cancer
- Colon cancer
- Cystic fibrosis
- Down syndrome
- Huntington’s disease
- Phenylketonuria
- Sickle cell disease
- DTC tests haven’t undergone the same rigorous analytical and clinical validation that’s required for standard genetic testing.
- DTC tests typically don’t require a physician or genetic specialist to interpret the results.
- DTC DNA testing companies make claims about supporting your health and wellness that aren’t supported by research.
- DTC tests often lack complete information or context [7].
Genetic Testing: Limitations
Overall, genetic testing, whether standard or DTC, has limitations. It doesn’t provide a complete picture of health risks, and even the scientifically validated genetic tests looking at inherited conditions can’t tell you for sure that you’ll have symptoms, how severe they’ll be, or how the condition may progress over time [11].In addition, DTC genetic tests make predictions based on population averages that don’t account for the variation in how each person responds to or expresses gene variants or SNPs [5]. In other words, it’s very difficult to know how you personally will be impacted by a certain gene variant or SNP because your environmental exposures and lifestyle, which impact how genes are expressed, are completely unique to you.
Complicating the issue is the fact that raw genetic information is difficult to interpret, so genetic testing companies offer third-party interpretation services to help you wade through the test results. But these services aren’t well-regulated, they have inadequate medical oversight, and they often overstate the risk of disease without any context or guidance on what to do about it [12, 13].
This can leave you confused and possibly fearful, which could contribute to a whole cascade of negative effects [14]. For example, if you have an SNP that’s linked to obesity, you may assume that you have no control and will automatically develop a weight problem, which may decrease your motivation with lifestyle interventions. But an analysis of genetic datasets related to obesity found the effect of SNPs on weight is likely very small, and factors in your control, like diet and exercise, are far more important [5].
Genetic Testing for Weight Loss

Even when clinical trials have found evidence suggesting FTO can predict how much weight you’ll lose relative to people without the gene variant, the differences have been very small and not clinically meaningful. For example, a meta-analysis found people with a certain genotype of the FTO polymorphism lost about a half-pound to a pound compared to people with a different genotype of the FTO after 3 months to 3 years of intervention [16].
When looking at DTC genetic tests for weight loss specifically, a systematic review of randomized controlled trials found most people who opted for nutritionist-directed DTC genetic testing for help with dietary changes didn’t actually implement DNA diet-related changes based on the test results [3]. And even those who did [make the implementations] didn’t see any significant improvements in their weight or body mass index (BMI) [4].
The bottom line here is consumers need to understand that genetic testing for weight loss has many limitations and challenges—it’s expensive, is unlikely to provide actionable information, and may actually do more harm than good.
Natural Weight Loss Solutions
If you’ve gained weight or haven’t been able to lose it despite trying, it’s important to target root causes. These weight loss interventions are effective whether you have or haven’t undergone genetic testing, so you may as well go ahead and get started now. Of course, an unhealthy diet and lack of physical activity are well-known contributing factors, so let’s start with solutions for those first [17].Intermittent Fasting for Weight Loss
Intermittent fasting (IF) is the process of restricting food intake, which may improve your health overall by increasing autophagy, a natural detoxification process that cleans up damaged cells and encourages new cell growth [18, 19].When it comes to weight loss specifically, research has found IF can lead to significant weight loss for people with excess weight [20]. In one study, obese adults lost an average of 12 pounds in eight weeks when fasting days were alternated with days of eating freely [21]. In addition, a systematic review and meta-analysis of 14 randomized controlled trials found IF to reduce body fat, waist circumference, and fat mass [22, 23, 24].
There are many ways to incorporate fasting into your lifestyle, here are some of the most common methods:

- 16:8, fast for 16 hours per day and eat during an 8-hour window.
- 14:10, fast for 14 hours per day and eat during a 10-hour window.
- 5:2, eat normally for 5 days per week and restrict calories to less than 500 per day on 2 non-consecutive days per week.
- 24-hour method, you only consume water or other non-calorie beverages for a 24-hour period one day per week.
Exercise for Weight Loss
When people think of exercise and weight loss, they often assume that they need to spend hours on the treadmill or elliptical machine at the gym. While cardiovascular exercise is very important for weight loss, resistance training may give you an important edge as it helps increase your muscular strength and endurance by building major muscle groups [17, 25].An overview of 12 systematic reviews and 149 other studies found people who exercise (whether using resistance training, cardiovascular training, or a combination), experienced significant weight and fat loss, but resistance training helped to reduce the loss of lean muscle mass that can often accompany weight loss [17, 26]
- Body weight exercises like push-ups, squats, and lunges.
- Barbell exercises like deadlifts and chest presses.
- Resistance bands for bicep curls and overhead presses.
- Free weight exercises (dumbbells, kettlebells, and medicine balls) like bicep curls, tricep curls, and shoulder presses.
- Weight machines for leg press, chest press, and back rows.
Here’s a comprehensive guide to resistance training to get you started, and here’s a potential exercise schedule:
Gut Health and Your Weight
Research suggests that people who carry extra weight may have leaky gut [30]. If you have a leaky gut, it will be very difficult to make headway on weight loss until it’s corrected.Leaky gut, also called increased intestinal permeability, is a loosening of the tight junctions between the cells that line your small intestine. When your gut is leaky, bacterial toxins, undigested food particles, and other foreign molecules can easily cross over the small intestine barrier, triggering an immune system response and inflammation [30, 31].
The longer the leaky gut goes on, the more likely it is to contribute to a vicious inflammatory cycle that can affect other areas of the body, giving rise to more inflammation and worsening intestinal permeability [30]. This can impair your nutrient absorption and zap your energy, which makes it more difficult to implement and stick with healthy weight loss behaviors.
- Inflammatory diet.
- Unmanaged stress [32, 33].
- Poor sleep [34].
- Regular alcohol use [35].
- Medications like non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs [36].
- Intestinal dysbiosis (imbalance of gut microbes) [37].
Healing Your Gut: A Step-By-Step Guide

Step 1: Reset
In this initial step, I recommend a quick gut reset with a modified fast for two to four days.Once you get through your fasting period, you then move on to a gut-healthy, elimination diet. An elimination diet can promote great gut health by reducing your exposure to allergens and food intolerances, improving your blood sugar control, and getting you in the habit of eating more whole, unprocessed foods.
There are several dietary plans to choose from. If you’re new to making diet-related changes, the Mediterranean diet is a great place to start. If you’re eating pretty healthy already, then maybe you want to try a more restrictive option like the Paleo diet.
In addition to what you’re eating, it’s important to avoid grazing and instead eat every four hours or so, unless you feel better when you skip a meal (38) (39). And this is where you can also incorporate your IF to help with weight loss.
While you’re working on finding the right diet, there are other lifestyle factors to consider. Sleep disturbances, lack of physical activity, and excess stress can all contribute to weight gain and poor gut health (40) (39) (32). Here’s a chart with the research-backed lifestyle options and helpful tips when you’re trying to lose weight and improve your gut health:
Of course, don’t feel the need to incorporate every single one of these recommendations right from the start. Pick one or two from each category and filter them into your routine until you’re practicing them consistently. In my experience, choosing healthy lifestyle behaviors day in and day out tends to lead to dramatic improvement in gut health and body composition. The overall goal is to create an environment in the body that supports healthy gut and metabolic function and this can certainly be done without expensive genetic testing.
Step 2: Probiotics
Probiotics can help support a healthy gut through a variety of mechanisms. Probiotics:- Increase gut microbiome diversity [48, 49, 50].
- Fight harmful bugs and their toxins [48, 49, 51, 52, 53].
- Promote a more rapid recovery from dysbiosis [48, 49].
- Promote a healthy immune response in your gut [48, 49 54, 55, 56].
- Reduce gut inflammation [48, 49, 50].
- Encourage the growth of your “good” gut microbes [48, 49, 54].
- Reduce leaky gut [48, 49, 57, 58, 59].
- Try a quality formula probiotic from category 1 (Lacto/Bifido blend), category 2 (Saccharomyces boulardii), and category 3 (soil-based)— take all three together.
- Monitor your symptoms for three to four weeks. If you’re improving, stay on this protocol until your improvements seem stable.
- Once you’ve seen your maximum improvement, stay here for about a month to allow your system to calibrate. Then reduce your dose and find the minimal effective dose and stick with that to maintain.
Lose Weight With Natural Solutions
If you feel like you’ve tried everything, but you’re still struggling to lose weight, it’s tempting to want to check out the latest fad. Direct-to-consumer genetic testing seems like an attractive option since it promises a weight loss plan tailored to your genetic profile. But unfortunately, the research just doesn’t support this. Aside from the lack of research, these tests are expensive, they can’t provide actionable information, and they may create psychological harm.If you want to lose weight and be successful long-term, you must address root causes like poor gut health, lack of physical activity, and poor dietary habits. Time and time again, research has found natural strategies that address diet, exercise, sleep, and stress to be very effective for weight loss. Dedicate yourself to the process outlined above.
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