EasyDNA features in leading Irish national Sunday newspaper, The Sunday Business Post. The company offers insightful information about current trends in genetic medicine and health testing for genetic predisposition to disease. 

Dublin, Ireland 3/7/2013 – EasyDNA Ireland has recently been interviewed on the shift towards genetic medicine and personalized health care by The Sunday Business Post, one of Ireland’s leading newspapers dedicated to commerce, business and economics.

The company offers a comprehensive heath test which explores the statistical probability that an individual has of developing 25 of the most common diseases in various medical classifications including cancers, general health diseases and autoimmune diseases.

Aoife Kavanagh, journalist for The Sunday Business Post, contacted EasyDNA in order to get noteworthy information about genetic testing for disease. The information supplied helped Kavanagh gel her article The Genetic Frontier which featured as a three page piece on the 16th of June 2013.

During the interview, EasyDNA Ireland supplied edifying information to The Sunday Business Post about its genetic health testing services as well as elaborating on current trends in personalized medicine and health management. Commenting on the interview, International operations manager for EasyDNA Ms. Martina Sullivan states “we view these opportunities to feature in leading newspapers, magazines and other publications as providing an educational avenue for building awareness of the way in which genetic testing can improve people’s lives, corporate exposure is of secondary importance”.  EasyDNA has also featured in some leading Tabloids such as The Sun, Canada’s National Post and several Irish soap operas and radio transmissions.

EasyDNA highlights how demands for genetic health testing services have escalated over the past 12 months. Ms. Sullivan has commented that leading Hollywood actress Angelina Jolie’s preventive choice, to have a mastectomy following the results of a genetic predisposition test to breast cancer, has brought home a reality to many but also simultaneously exemplified the way in which science can be used to take better control of one’s health and prevent disease.  Ms. Sullivan, cited in Kavanagh’s article, further elaborates on the benefits of such tests saying that people “armed with the results of a health test, can then discuss with a doctor or qualified nutritionist how best to take control of their current and future health – this is really the path the personalized medicine and health care”.

Kavanagh herself also provides very expansive arguments, objectively tackling genetic tests and drawing upon the ever pervasive nature versus nurture debate. In her article she clearly gives weight to the function of genes but also to the effects of “environmental factors [which] play a role in how a particular gene affects a particular individual and what the risks are for them” (The Sunday Business Post, June 16th 2013, p.20). Kavanagh also deals with the subject of genetic medicine from various angles, including the many controversial aspects of genetic health testing such as preconception IVF treatment to health tests carried out by individuals later on in life.

Genetic health testing is an evaluation of an individual’s susceptibility to diseases that have a genetic link. A laboratory representative for EasyDNA explains the science behind this test, briefly detailing the test by stating “we analyze what are known as single nucleotide polymorphisms or SNPs. These are very small changes in the sequences in the DNA molecule from one individual to the next. Certain sequences are associated with certain diseases”.  For more information on this test CLICK HERE

Sample collection for the EasyDNA’s genetic health test is done using a home kit. Clients need to collect a small sample of blood by using the finger lancet inside the kit. They then return their samples for laboratory analysis. The journalist also adds Ms. Sullivan’s final words of advice “EasyDNA recommends that anybody taking the test should discuss the process with a medical professional both before and after testing”. According to Kavanagh’s article in The Sunday Business Post there should be 32 full time genetic counselors in Ireland. These would be the ideal people to consult when having such a test carried out.

To review the article in full as featured in The Sunday Business Post – CLICK HERE