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Expert guide to home health tests: Great idea or pandering to the ‘worried well’?
Australians can now do at-home tests for everything from menopause to sexually transmitted diseases. But which DIY kits can you rely on?
23 March, 2025
Walk down the aisle of any chemist and you’ll come across a growing list of home self-testing kits. Vitamin D deficiency, perimenopause, urinary tract infections, STIs are among the conditions to be tested. Go online and there are even more – including at-home cholesterol and blood-glucose testing.
As we all strive to understand our health better, information is key, but context is critical.
The Covid pandemic normalised home testing. But like Covid, the results of point-in-time home tests may not be as black and white as they seem.
Mark Morgan, chair of the Royal Australian College of General Practitioners expert committee on quality care, says the fallibility of Covid tests, which can depend on many factors such as how sensitive the test is and when it is taken, can apply in situations beyond the pandemic.
“Pregnancy self-testing kits have been around for decades,” Professor Morgan says. “A positive test is life-changing, but a negative test might miss very early pregnancy.”
Home testing is generally carried out through either pinprick blood tests or urine testing. Professor Morgan says at a helicopter level, this self-testing has its place, with significant caveats.
“Home testing certainly kicks goals for convenience. For some tests such as sexually transmitted diseases, home tests also afford some additional privacy. On the flip side, results of tests can be confusing, inaccurate and misleading.
“Imagine doing a self-test that turns out to be falsely reassuring. For example, using a phone app to look at a new dark spot on your skin. If the phone app provides false reassurance it might delay your diagnosis of skin cancer,” he says.
“Buying a self-test to engage in some sort of hunt for conditions may well do you more harm than benefit. An example might be self-testing for food allergies that might then lead to a lifetime of restricted diet with no appreciable benefits to health.
“One helpful rule of thumb before doing any test – ‘will the result change what I do next?’
“There are thousands of blood tests available, but doctors will be highly selective about which ones to recommend because some tests just don’t matter,” Professor Morgan says.
But John Kelly, chief executive of Atomo Diagnostics, a listed company providing HIV self-testing kits and developing a syphilis home-test, says Australia has been “relatively slow to adopt widespread rapid testing, due in large part to the reimbursement for testing being heavily skewed to laboratory testing services”.
“This can adversely impact how testing is offered to the community, and we saw this with an over-reliance on PCR testing during the Covid pandemic,” Mr Kelly says.
“There are certainly participants in the healthcare industry that will lose market share as the transition to decentralised point-of-care testing and self-testing accelerates.”
In an effort to provide some clarity for consumers, we’ve had medical experts take a look at some of the raft of home-tests now available.
Cholesterol home screening
Product: Lifesmart Cholesterol Multifunctional Monitor – cholesterol, blood glucose, ketone. $69 plus shipping (Online from ablehealth.com.au). Cholesterol test strips sold separately. $39.95 for 10.
The test requires a small pin prick to obtain a blood droplet, which is placed on the test strip. That strip is put into the monitor for analysis.
It connects to a smartphone via Bluetooth, so that all information can be viewed and analysed in real time. You are also provided with a guide as to what is considered desirable, borderline high, or high, with advice on what to do next, including contacting your GP if it is high.
A free app will allow you to share the data with your doctor, dietitian or family. A similar product in the UK allows a patient to send the results directly to the NHS.
Paul Glasziou, emeritus professor of evidence-based practice at Bond University, says cholesterol is just one element to consider when assessing someone’s risk of heart disease, so an overemphasis on it can be risky.
“Further, even with a good lab analysing a good blood sample there can be significant variation over different days, between 5 and 10 per cent, even if the person’s cholesterol is stable,” Professor Glasziou says.
“Clinically there is really only a need to test a person’s cholesterol every one to three years, for instance during someone’s annual health check.
“All the rest is just noise, a waste of money, and anxiety-inducing. The random variations mean a person is likely to over-interpret the results. I think it’s an appeal to the worried well,” he says.
STI self-screening
Product: TouchBio Chlamydia and Gonorrhea rapid test (for females) $24 (available online)
Product: Atomo Diagnostics HIV Self Test ($25 online or in selected pharmacies) (Syphilis test in development)
The first of these tests is conducted by collecting a vaginal swab, and using a process similar to a Covid RAT test to obtain a reading. It has some limitations, in that it may not detect some chlamydia strains contracted within 60 days of the test, and similar for gonorrhoea strains within 10 days.
The second test is done by a pin prick blood test.
The RACGP chair of specific interests, sexual health medicine, Sara Whitburn, says “better access to testing and subsequent treatment for positive results is crucial for reducing the transmission of STIs, so new initiatives to encourage testing are welcome”.
Mr Kelly says his company’s experience with HIV testing reveals many people will avoid going to the doctor when concerned about sexually transmitted infections.
“This is due to a broad range of factors including embarrassment, cultural barriers to seeking testing, familiarity – their doctor knows the partner or children.
“Some people don’t want an STI test registered on the Medicare record. A lot of immigrant arrivals are not in the healthcare system and don’t have a doctor,” he says.
Dr Whitburn warns the chlamydia and gonorrhoea test is limited.
“It is validated only for vaginal samples, so it can’t be used to screen for oral or anal chlamydia and gonorrhoea,” Dr Whitburn says.
“Chlamydia also often presents as asymptomatic, and gonorrhoea may by asymptomatic or symptoms may not present until months after infection.
“Improved access to screening is valuable, but regular testing with your GP or a sexual health professional who can test for these and other infections is still essential for sexually active people,” she says.
Bowel screening
Product: Colovantage Home Test ($45 online or in some chemists)
This is a faecal immunochemical test for the screening of bowel disease. It detects whether there are traces of blood in the stool as a result of colorectal disease. The method is somewhat complex, including collecting water around the stool in the toilet for analysis.
Australia already has a free national bowel screening program. Test kits are sent every two years to all Australians aged 50 and over. And since last year those aged 45-49 are eligible to screen with the program if they apply.
There has been some recent concern about younger people being diagnosed with colorectal cancers.
“Colorectal cancer was the fourth-leading cause of cancer death in both men and women younger than 50 years in the late-1990s but is now first in men and second in women,” the American Cancer Society wrote in its report Cancer Statistics 2024.
Professor Glasziou says the Australian government’s screening program is about right on a cost-benefit analysis.
“There has been some argument about the age at which the free screening starts, but I would say about 50 is the right age.
“The exception would be for those with a family history. I’d suggest they maintain regular contact with their GP on this,” he says.
Perimenopause
Product: WeTestBio Perimenopause FSH Home Test Kit ($29 for a two-pack online or at pharmacies)
The test is performed using a urine sample. The information coming with the test says that “as the female body ages and produces less oestrogen, FSH (follicle stimulating hormone) levels increase as the hormone tries to stimulate the ovaries to produce a healthy egg”.
Here is the link:
This is a useful review of what is presently available for home – testing and I am sure there are a few more in the pipeline. Seems to me such testing is useful to help people decide if they need to seek professional help as well as ease the worry of those who test negative.
This is surely the start of a trend which will only ramp up over the next few years.
Watch this space!
David.
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