Watch Those Eyelashes
Would you want to know what medical condition is going to knock you off your ass in the future? The California company, Navigenics seems to think so. They have set up a showroom in SOHO at 76 Greene Street between Spring and Broome. For the price of $2,500, they will take a saliva sample and analyze your DNA to gauge the risk of contracting one of 18 conditions including a heart attack and Alzheimers. The space will also hold a series of panel discussions on genomic testing.
So, aside from the $2,500 - would you want to know this information? What implications do you think this type of testing has in the future? Can the world envisioned in Gattaca be far off?
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This creates a real internal battle - is ignorance bliss or is knowledge power?
I used to work on creative work for a charity called Everyman that raised awareness for testicular and prostate cancer. Apparently, a high percentage of men who passed away from 'old age', 'natural causes', and other more tangible ailments were also found to have non-agressive cancer of the prostate. This cancer was never going to kill them but that knowledge is still hard to live with. What if they knew they had cancer? Would they have lived their lives differently for no reason? Perhaps worried themselves to an even earlier grave?
A bone surgeon at the Hospital for Special Surgery in New York told me about the increasing amount of paranoid rich people in California who pay to have a full body MRI to get everything checked out. This is resulting in a multitude of biopsies to see if every little anomaly is either benign or malignant. Most are benign but what if? Is it better not to know? My internal battle still rages on...
Personally, I don't want to know.
ignorance is bliss for me. If I knew what i was going to die from, I'd be spending all my time trying to prevent it and probably die from something else. I wouldn't be enjoying what life i had left.
If I knew I was in danger of a heart attack, I'd get to a doctor, nutritionist and gym right away.
I wouldn't rush to spend the $2500, but I wouldn't fear knowing either. Biology isn't always destiny.
For some people, finding out this information might be a smart move - those who smoke, don't take care of themselves, etc may change their actions if they knew not doing so would directly lead to their death.
However, for those of us who are already slightly more mindful of our health, what benefit would knowing this information offer? For me, I pass on findig out - knowing would make life so much more stressful with constant worry of when my health would change.