Imagine a world where your medical treatment is 100% unique. Every diagnosis, treatment, drug and dietary change is tailored to you and you alone. Every treatment works in a predictable way, with a predictable timeframe and with predictable and minimised side effects.
In other words, imagine not worrying when you walk into the hospital. Instead of feeling like a car on an assembly line, you’ll be treated like the unique human being you are. Instead of seeing a specialist in a field of medicine, the information in your genome can turn any GP into a specialist in the field of ‘you’.
They’ll know what you’re at risk of and what symptoms to look for. They’ll know precisely what’s wrong with you instead of matching up your symptoms to a disease. They’ll know how to treat you, not the average human being.
Changing medicine in this way would fundamentally alter your quality of life in retirement.
It makes sense to individualise medicine. Your body is unique, after all. But to provide personalised medicine would surely require absurd amounts of tests, knowledge and expertise. Can you imagine the cost?
Well, thanks to the science of genomics, the cost is rapidly falling. You won’t believe how much. And you may only have to take one test…ever.
How Medicine is Broken
But what’s wrong with medicine now? A lot. Right now, patients tend to receive a standardised treatment.
You can see the problem – everyone is different, but our treatments are the same. Drugs often only work in certain people. They actually end up harming others. But it is often possible to predict for whom a drug will work, and whether it will have side effects.
For example, a commonly used drug called Carbamazepine is prescribed for a variety of neurological conditions. It has a six in 10,000 chance of a potentially fatal side effect. But we can identify who that 6 in 10,000 are using genetics, by looking for the tell tale genetic pattern of ‘Stevens Johnson syndrome’.
In Taiwan, where the probability of the syndrome is much higher for racial reasons, the genetic test is compulsory before you can take the drug.
Taiwan is showing how genomics can be used to prevent devastating side effects, and literally save lives. But the power of genomics is far greater. You see, despite the Hippocratic Oath doctors take to ‘do no harm’, they often unconsciously do more harm than good.
For example, a number of studies have shown that the number of false positive PSA tests (for prostate cancer) is so high that the damage done from widespread testing outweighs the benefits.
The Cost of Being Healthy in Retirement Research has shown a male retiree has a 50-50 chance of incurring more than $109,000 of medical expenditure in retirement.
Women face a 50% higher cost at the same level of probability. On another estimate, the
average 65 year old couple will need $220,000 to pay for their life’s healthcare. Understanding your genome could help you cut these costs dramatically by avoiding diseases you’re at risk of, adjusting treatments and predicting debilitating side effects.
The same applies to mammography testing for breast cancer. The pain, cost, emotional hardship, surgical complications and anxiety of false positives is so large that widespread testing should be stopped.
I know this goes against conventional wisdom, but the researchers aren’t saying there should be no testing at all. Instead, targeted testing based on genetics and family history should be used. If you sequence your genome and the risk of breast or prostate cancer is elevated, then you should get tested regularly.
Of course, pharmaceutical companies and doctors won’t tell you this. There’s too much profit involved. The world’s most successful drug class based on revenue (statins) only works properly in one to two people in 100 according to Eric Topol of the Scripps Research Institute.
In short, something is seriously wrong in the world of medicine…
Fixing Medicine in Your Favour
The solution to problems like these is personalised medicine. And genetics is a key part of that.
Knowing your patient so well that you can personalise their treatment is the Holy Grail for
doctors. That’s because rather than just hoping you’ll stay healthy or react well to drugs, gene sequencing looks at the real you. It paints a picture, which doctors can refer to for the rest of your life.
Apart from improving medicine, saving lives and preventing discomfort, genomics could help save vast amounts of money. If people stopped taking drugs that don’t work for them, or which create side effects worse than the disease, that would save enormous amounts of wasted drugs and treatments.
Of course, there is also the opposite risk. If you’re a hypochondriac, you might choose to interpret your sequenced genome in a way that does more harm than good. If you think you might panic at the slightest sign you’re likely to get a disease, don’t get the test done in the first place. It’s not for you.
Scientists are now able to sequence, or map, your genome. Your genome is what makes you
unique. It’s what sets each of us apart.
Hidden inside your cells are strands of DNA. And inside your DNA are your genes. They are the combinations of four types of ‘bases’. The sequences of the bases are what spell out your genome and determine your characteristics. Your appearance, immune system, allergies, and much more are determined by your genome.
Certain patterns in your genome give scientists information about you. They can identify diseases you’re at risk of, diseases you’re a ‘silent carrier’ of, your physical traits and much more.
Yes, this leads to all sorts of moral, ethical and practical questions. How much information about your future health do you really want to know? How much of it will be accurate? Will your worrying exceed your peace of mind? You are perfectly right to be worried about the implications.
But there are also enormous benefits.
Nick Hubble+
Editor, The Money for Life Letter
Ed Note: If you’re interested in learning more about getting your genome sequenced, including how to do it, you can check out the latest issue of the The Money for Life Letter by clicking here…
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