Whenever you get results back from a medical test it can be anxiety-provoking, but people tend to get very shook when they learn that something is different in their DNA, says Natalie Beck , MGC, CGC, senior genetic counselor at Johns Hopkins Institute of Genetic Medicine. "In reality, we all have variations in our DNA, and many times they're just normal differences that might be medically relevant," she says. And relevance is key here: Part of a genetic counselor's job from the get-go is to help figure out which tests are even necessary for an individual based on their medical history, because there's no such thing as a "one-size-fits-all test," she says. For example, if BRCA 1 and 2 genes (two genes that are associated with an increased risk of breast and ovarian cancer ) are known to run in your family, then you could have targeted testing for the exact same variant. But opting into a random home test could leave you with "basically a lot of raw unvalidated information, that in many cases doesn’t mean anything," she says.