In search of insights into personal disease risk, healthy individuals are hungrily searching for ways to access their genome sequence data, and the authors of a new study expect it to drive prices low enough to make it widely available.

In light of this probability, it's important to educate people about the impact this information could bring, in both the realm of personal health and on psychosocial terms, they say.

"Human beings are inherently curious about themselves," says co-author Saskia Sanderson, PhD, a research psychologist and Adjunct Assistant Professor at the Icahn School of Medicine. "Our findings suggest that some people will seek out personal genomic information about themselves, regardless of whether it's viewed as clinically useful or medically actionable."

At Mount Sinai Medical Center in New York, the HealthSeq project provided personal whole genome sequencing to 35 healthy participants and followed up with them over time to understand the experience from their perspective.

Participants' risks of developing type 2 diabetes, heart disease and Alzheimer's were revealed to them in addition to how they were likely to respond to medications they had never taken, their carrier status, physical traits and ancestry.

One of the key factors that motivated participants to take part in the study was pure curiosity about their ancestry and the science behind it all, according to the researchers.

Their motivations, expectations and concerns were gauged by means of a questionnaire and extensive interview conducted at the start of the study and the point of informed consent at which they chose to share their data or not.

Over half the participants had privacy concerns despite being highly motivated to access the information.

Only one third consented to sharing their data in the National Institute of Health-sponsored Database of Genotypes and Phenotypes (dbGaP).

Data-sharing is vital to scientific advancement, says co-author Michael Linderman, PhD., adding that participants' reluctance to share has implications for the value of the technology.

The HealthSeq project is said to be the first to offer personal whole genome sequencing combined with personal genomic information that expands to non-health-related results such as ancestry and raw sequence data.

"In the medical and scientific communities, there is considerable debate about the potential utility, or lack thereof, of personal genome sequencing for preventive or predictive purposes," says Sanderson. "But if people are going to seek out this information regardless, we need to start figuring out how -- not whether -- we are going to do this."

The study was published in the European Journal of Human Genetics.

At-home genetic testing products such as 23andME that provide similar services are considered controversial because they could influence people to make medical decisions they wouldn't otherwise.

23andME recently became the first direct-to-consumer genetic test approved by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA), yet the approval is only for testing for the inherited disorder Bloom Syndrome, characterized by short stature and sun-sensitive skin, among other problems.

Earlier this year, not long after the FDA approval, 23andMe announced the creation of a new therapeutics unit designed to identify new solutions to diseases using human genetic data.