If you had a crystal ball that could look into your future and tell you what diseases you would have in later life or even which one would kill you, would you look? If you found out that, for example, you would contract Alzheimer’s disease and become demented and largely helpless, what would you do? If your insurance company could get this kind of information about you, would your life insurance rates go up?
These questions and many more are increasingly coming to the fore these days because of emerging technology. It is now possible to send a small sample of your DNA, usually in a bit of your saliva, to a company that will, for a fee, analyze your chromosomes and tell you what they see in your future. More of these outfits are popping up all the time and they can be easily found on the Internet.
As with many other things in life, the predictions that can be gained from DNA samples are hedged in a lot of caveats. The tests do not tell you that you will get a particular disease, simply whether you are at an increased risk of it compared with other people. Similarly, they don’t guarantee you won’t get an illness. In addition, they are based on the DNA you have inherited from your ancestors and don’t have much bearing on diseases that aren’t inherited and no bearing at all on accidental death or injury.
Having said all that, however, the tests can indicate whether you have an increased likelihood of getting, for example, cancer and that knowledge might be useful to your physician in guiding you towards ways to decrease your risk. I have personal knowledge about this one, having had a bout with melanoma, and I now take precautions I never took before. Unfortunately, I have also had to tell my children and grandchildren that their risk is somewhat elevated too. I’m glad I learned about this and I’m dealing with it but I’m ambivalent about trying to ferret out more information.
For some people, just learning that they have an increased risk for something dire will make them almost paranoid and depressed. If they’ve been sailing merrily along in life and suddenly find out they have a heightened risk for Parkinson’s disease it could be devastating, particularly if they are fairly young and vital and, in the way of young people, don’t spend much time thinking about the end of their lives. Others fear they may be discriminated against if someone else finds out about their test results. The testing itself may entail some hardship because, while many tests are relatively inexpensive, some can cost as much as two thousand dollars.
This huge amount of steel was produced in Japan. http://robertrobb.com/worst-part-of-coronavirus-is-the-reaction/ cialis tadalafil online Pressure on the sufferer must tadalafil from cipla be avoided due to the fact it may possibly intensify the aspect side effects. Use of NO products during these phases can be especially beneficial for teens who may become distracted when taking courses bulk buy viagra in school with friends present. Symptoms of Body glucose level below 60-65 milligrams/decilitre- Shakiness, feeling of hunger, little racing of cheapest generic levitra heart. b. If the availability of this kind of information poses some psychological and perhaps financial problems and if the results are uncertain at best, what about the earlier questions and others? In the United States, Congress enacted a law back in 2008 that is supposed to prevent discrimination, based on your DNA test results, by your employer or your health care provider. Interestingly the law, known as the Genetic Information Non-discrimination Act or GINA, does not apply to the providers of long-term health care or of health insurance, leaving open the possibility that some health insurance companies might have a rate card that adjusts based on the results of a DNA test they require you to have and to provide to them.
And if this kind of thing can happen, can’t you just see the potential for other applications of the DNA information. A pretty girl and a handsome young man may be pursuing an ideal relationship and thinking about marriage until one day the girl says, “By the way, Bill, what does your DNA test show? I want to know if having kids with you is going to produce young ‘uns we will have to look after for the rest of our lives.” Perhaps the standard wedding ceremony should be re-written to say “We are gathered together in the presence of these witnesses and of the favorable DNA test results to join this man and this woman….”
At best, DNA testing can tell you about probabilities and possibilities, not about certainties. The future remains largely hidden from us and that may be a good thing. Life itself is something of a crap-shoot. We start into it feeling immortal and, as we get older, realize we are going to die at some point; the only questions being when and in what manner. DNA testing cannot answer either of these questions with certainty.
There’s no question that knowledge of what is likely to happen to our health down the line can be useful in planning for it. On the other hand, we are all dying right now, we just don’t know all the details. DNA testing is a product of our modern technology and no doubt it will become more precise in its ability to predict our futures as the underlying science is improved. It will never, however, be able to tell us the precise timing and method of our demise by disease and it will certainly never tell us whether we are likely to be hit by a bus next Wednesday.
A little knowledge, they say, is a dangerous thing, so the question remains; if you could peer into that crystal ball and see your future health, if it contained (as it might) a significant risk of breast cancer or macular degeneration or Parkinson’s disease, would you want to look?
Brad Franklin is a former political reporter, newscaster and federal government employee in Canada. He is a regular columnist for China’s English Salon magazine and lives on Vancouver Island.