Why I took a personal DNA test

Available for over a year

If you could find out whether you're at risk for cancer, Alzheimer's or some other genetically linked disease - would you want to know? What would you do with that information? It's 12 years since the human genome was first sequenced - when scientists mapped the billions of letters in our DNA. Since then it's become cheaper and easier to discover our personal DNA sequences: now several companies in the UK and the US can help you do just that. There is a health warning, though, so to speak. The accuracy of the results is being questioned by the US Food and Drugs Administration. And here in the UK, the Department of Health is warning people that they should "think carefully" before using a genomic assessment because "no test is 100 per cent reliable". Listener Freya Marshall had a DNA test two years ago. She tells Jennifer Tracey that she didn't know anyone else who had done one and knew little about it at the time. But Freya had one overwhelming question that she wanted answered. A question that had been on her mind for more than 35 years.