Genetic testing does not drive increased use of health services,
according to the results of a study published online by the
journal Genetics in Medicine. The National Institutes of Health-
led study found that the increased information about disease
risk that results from genetic testing does not appreciably
drive up or diminish participants' demand for follow-up
healthcare, according to an NIH news release The study aimed to
address some of the uncertainty among healthcare providers about
whether people who received the genetic risk information would
seek additional diagnostic testing to monitor for predicted
illnesses. “This study goes a long way towards bringing data to
these debates and shows that people are not likely to make
inappropriate demands of health delivery systems if they are
properly informed about the limitations of genetic tests,” said
Colleen McBride, chief of the National Human Genome Research
Institute's Social and Behavioral Research Branch, in the
release. The study of 217 healthy peopl