Living DNA is a UK-based personal genomics company that provides detailed DNA testing services that may help you uncover both your ancestry and personal wellbeing insights.
The platform offers a range of kits that allow you to explore your genetic heritage. It provides information and the opportunity to connect with genetic relatives through family networks, adding a social dimension to your genetic discovery. These tests help you understand how your genetic makeup can influence daily life and long-term wellness.
In this review, we will explore Living DNA, analyzing its features and focus. We will also evaluate the advantages and limitations that may help you understand Living DNA’s approach in detail.
Living DNA is focused on helping you discover more about yourself through detailed genetic insights. It emphasizes scientific accuracy and strict privacy measures, ensuring that your genetic data remains secure and under your control.
The brand’s offerings are divided into ancestry and wellbeing categories. Its ancestry-focused products provide in-depth genetic analysis, including worldwide regional breakdowns. Living DNA delivers particularly detailed insights for African ancestry (five times more detail than typical tests) and the British Isles.
The platform offers DNA-based Nutrition and Fitness Testing combined in Ancestry & well-being kits. These provide personalized understandings into how your body may respond to diet, exercise, and lifestyle choices, helping you make informed decisions for your wellness. It has also expanded into health-focused testing that can help give you a clearer understanding of your current fitness levels and potential future risks.
Living DNA gives access to an Ancestry Kit, which provides a detailed view of your ancestry, spanning from recent generations to 80,000 years ago. Through a simple cheek swab, it can analyze your DNA to show both maternal and paternal lineage, giving you access to haplogroup information and insights into ancient migrations.
This test includes a comprehensive regional and sub-regional breakdown of your ancestry. Living DNA’s platform can identify over 150 regions worldwide and offers deeper sub-regional analysis in certain areas, allowing you to explore ancestry at a level of detail.
As per the official website, the kit also provides DNA matching capabilities. You can connect with genetic relatives globally through Family Networks, compare DNA segments using the Chromosome Browser, and see how much DNA you share with others. The platform also delivers free updates to ensure your ancestry information remains current.
The combination of haplogroup analysis, SNP comparison, chromosome painting, and DNA matching could give you a personalized view of your ancestry.
The Wellbeing Kit can help you understand how your genetics influence your lifestyle choices. The platform provides insights into how your body responds to vitamins, processes different foods, and reacts to various forms of exercise by analyzing your DNA through a simple mouth swab that comes with this kit.
The kit includes reports on vitamin response, food metabolism, nutrition advice, exercise guidance, and recovery strategies. For example, it can identify whether your body requires extra Vitamin D, highlight sensitivities to certain foods like gluten or lactose, and suggest exercises best suited to your genetic profile. The platform also mentions recommendations for recovery and stretching that could help you optimize your fitness and wellness routine.
The Wellbeing & Ancestry Kit from Living DNA combines detailed ancestry insights with personalized wellbeing reports, offering a comprehensive view of your genetic profile. Through this testing kit, the platform analyzes your DNA to reveal your maternal and paternal lineage, trace ancient migrations, and provide extended ancestry connections with other users worldwide.
For ancestry, the kit delivers both recent and sub-regional breakdowns, using Living DNA’s unique chromosome painting method to explore up to 500 years of your family history. It also includes DNA matching, enabling you to connect with relatives globally and understand how your extended ancestry is shared.
The wellbeing kit provides details on vitamin response, food metabolism, nutrition recommendations, exercise guidance, and recovery strategies. It identifies genetic variants affecting how your body processes vitamins and nutrients, and helps optimize your diet.
The results integrate lineage information with functional genetic data, which may help illustrate how ancestry and specific genetic variants contribute to your current biological traits.
Living DNA claims to separate genetic information from personal data, assigning each user a unique random barcode to ensure confidentiality during support interactions.
As per the official website, where possible, genetic data is anonymized before being shared with third parties, including laboratory partners.
You can also delete your data at any time. The platform claims that it does not sell personal or genetic information, and participation in research is voluntary and anonymous.
As per its official site, the platform is fully GDPR-compliant and certified under ISO:9001 for quality management and ISO:27001 for information security.
It claims to do regular audits of third-party providers to ensure compliance with these standards, giving you greater control and confidence in how your sensitive data is handled.
Living DNA provides a detailed fitness and well-being analysis through its Kits, combining genetic data with practical lifestyle insights.
The platform examines your DNA to show how your body responds to vitamins, nutrients, and different forms of exercise. For example, it offers a Well-being kit, which helps identify genetic variants affecting Vitamin D metabolism, gluten sensitivity, and lactose digestion, helping you make dietary choices that may work well with your body’s needs.
It also offers guidance on exercise routines and recovery strategies aligned with your genetic profile, allowing for a more targeted approach to fitness. This could provide a clear view of your health potential along with actionable support for nutrition, exercise, and recovery.
Living DNA puts a strong focus on breaking down ancestry within the British Isles, giving you fine-scale detail across England, Scotland, Wales, and Ireland. With the Ancestry Kit, you can even see sub-regional insights, such as Devon, Cornwall, or Orkney, making it a clear specialist in Celtic and Anglo-Saxon mapping.
However, this depth comes with trade-offs, since the platform doesn’t offer the same level of coverage worldwide. Instead of precise sub-regional matches, you may only see broad continental categories. That means your results can feel less precise, reducing the platform’s usefulness when you want a clear picture of your background.
Feedback shared on Reddit reflects this as users highlighted that Living DNA provides strong coverage in the British Isles with 21 sub-regions and in Africa with 72 sub-regions, but reports for countries like France, Germany, or Italy often appear less reliable, sometimes failing to match your known family history.
Living DNA’s genealogical features are limited to the “Family Networks” tool, which connects you with genetic matches. It does not provide access to U.S. census records, immigration documents, or extensive historical archives, which are typically used to construct detailed family trees. While it can reveal genetic relationships and ancestry composition, it may not support in-depth genealogical research or tracing your extended family history.
Alterme and Living DNA are two distinct DNA-based wellness platforms, each with a unique approach to helping you understand your genetics and support your fitness goals.
As per its official website, Alterme emphasizes a comprehensive, personalized fitness and wellness system. It analyzes 60 genetic polymorphisms to evaluate 13 key traits related to fitness, nutrition, stress management, and recovery. This genetic data forms the foundation for personalized recommendations that guide your daily wellness decisions. In addition to DNA analysis, Alterme combines biometric tracking through its smart ring, offering real-time monitoring of sleep, movement, heart rate, and recovery. This combination allows the platform to provide personalized workouts, AI-powered nutrition guidance, and daily assessments to help you track progress over time.
On the other hand, Living DNA primarily focuses on ancestry and well-being insights. Its Wellbeing & Ancestry Kit provides detailed ancestry reports alongside assessments of how your body responds to exercise, nutrition, and vitamins. The platform may help in giving you a detailed picture of your genetic background, including regional ancestry breakdowns, Neanderthal reports, and family DNA connections. While it offers wellness insights, Living DNA does not include wearable tracking or AI-driven daily coaching like Alterme. Instead, it provides one-time purchase kits, giving you in-depth reports on ancestry and wellness without a recurring subscription model.
Pricing and delivery models also highlight a key difference between the two brands. Alterme operates on a subscription model starting at $66 per month, which covers the DNA analysis, the Alterme Ring, personalized fitness plans, and AI nutrition coaching. Living DNA, on the other hand, offers one-time purchase kits starting around $169–$188 for combined ancestry and wellbeing insights, focusing on delivering detailed genetic reports without ongoing engagement or wearables.
Alterme offers a fully integrated, daily wellness system that combines genetics, biometric tracking, and AI guidance. Meanwhile, Living DNA focuses on ancestry and how your genetics influence lifestyle factors, with a focus on detailed reports rather than daily, actionable recommendations.
While both platforms use your DNA to inform health decisions, Alterme emphasizes real-time, personalized intervention, whereas Living DNA emphasizes genetic knowledge and ancestry exploration.
As per its official website, Genebase offers a broad spectrum of genetic services ranging from ancestry and health testing to fitness, nutrition, and sexual health. The company operates a CLIA-certified and CAP-accredited laboratory, ensuring that its testing processes meet high standards of accuracy and reliability.
Living DNA, on the other hand, primarily focused on ancestry testing. It provides highly detailed regional breakdowns, particularly for African and British Isles ancestries, and also includes wellness and fitness insights. Unlike Genebase, Living DNA emphasizes ancestry depth and genealogical connections over comprehensive medical testing.
In terms of offerings, Genebase provides a rich and unique set of options. You can explore maternal and paternal lineage through mtDNA and Y-DNA testing, and the Combo DNA Ancestry Test combines both for a more comprehensive ancestral picture.
The platform also provides extensive health-related testing, including assessments for conditions such as hemochromatosis, celiac disease, and cardiovascular disease, alongside DNA fitness, nutrition, and weight loss tests. It also offers at-home sexual health tests for STDs, including HIV, Chlamydia, and Gonorrhea, as well as relationship testing such as DNA Twin Test, DNA Maternity Test, and DNA Paternity Test.
On the other hand, Living DNA focuses primarily on ancestry, providing maternal and paternal lineage results, sub-regional ancestry insights, and Neanderthal trait reports. Its wellness and fitness offerings are limited to nutritional and exercise response insights rather than clinical health testing.
Pricing structures further differentiate the two brands. Genebase’s ancestry tests are comparatively expensive, with its Combo DNA Ancestry Test priced around $1,700 to +$1800, while individual health and fitness tests range from $49 to $249.
On the other hand, Living DNA offers more affordable options, with ancestry kits priced around $150 to $200 + shipping and combined wellbeing and ancestry kits priced around $100 to $150. This makes Living DNA more accessible to users primarily interested in ancestry and wellness rather than extensive medical testing.
Genebase offers comprehensive genetic testing covering health, fitness, sexual health, and relationship verification.
Meanwhile, Living DNA is more focused on delivering highly detailed ancestry information with additional wellness insights. Your choice between the two will depend on whether you prioritize medical and lifestyle testing or deep ancestry and genealogical exploration.
To evaluate Living DNA, we considered the brand’s history, background, product offerings, and customer feedback across review platforms. It is a UK-based DNA testing company founded in 2016 that focuses on ancestry testing, analyzing autosomal, Y-chromosome, and mitochondrial DNA.
Customer reviews were an important part of our evaluation. On Trustpilot, the company holds a strong rating of 4.5 out of 5 from 600+ reviews, with users highlighting the detailed reports and user-friendly testing process.
On Tenereteam, the brand has a 4.6 rating, based on 12+ reviews. Some users noted concerns about the accuracy of results for non-UK ancestries and the pricing of certain kits.
Our evaluation finds Living DNA to be a credible and innovative company in the DNA testing space. While its reports are detailed and the testing process secure, potential users should consider the brand’s regional focus to ensure it aligns with their specific ancestry interests.
Our evaluation of Living DNA is primarily based on customer feedback from Trustpilot in 2025. The reviews suggest that the brand places a strong emphasis on customer service and support.
Reviewers consistently highlighted the responsiveness, professionalism, and helpfulness of the support team. Customers reported that issues such as lost kits, inconclusive results, or unique situations were quickly resolved, often with replacements or additional options provided. This demonstrates that Living DNA is attentive to customer concerns and committed to ensuring a smooth experience.
We also assessed the quality of the DNA testing itself. Many users praised the depth and clarity of the results, including detailed regional breakdowns, Y-DNA and mtDNA analysis, family matching, and optional additional tests.
Compared to other DNA testing services, Living DNA was noted for providing more specific ancestry insights and faster turnaround times for results, which adds to the overall positive experience.
However, we also noted some limitations. Certain reviews pointed out inaccuracies in regional classifications, such as the grouping of populations under broad regions, which can oversimplify genetic diversity and misrepresent historical or cultural context.
While not a widespread concern, it indicates that the ancestry interpretation may not always fully reflect geographic or historical realities.
Living DNA has received praise for its customer service, support, and the quality of its ancestry testing. Its primary limitation appears to be the nuanced accuracy of regional results, which may affect users seeking highly precise ancestry breakdowns. Despite this, the majority of feedback indicates a reliable, customer-focused experience with thorough and well-presented results.
Living DNA positions itself as a genetics platform focused on ancestry mapping and health-related insights. The platform claims to provide scientifically credible testing and GDPR-compliant data anonymization. These features may help you explore both heritage and potential genetic influences on wellbeing.
However, the platform’s limitations are important to note. Its geographic strength is narrow, with detailed precision largely limited to the British Isles. Health and well-being insights are based on genetic probabilities, not definitive outcomes, and should not be used in place of medical advice.
You should view Living DNA as a tool for broad exploration rather than diagnostic certainty. If your ancestry lies outside its strongest regions, expect less detailed reporting. Keeping these factors in mind allows you to set realistic expectations about the platform’s approach.
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