Why Me, You Ask

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I grew up in a household where illness was common. Both of my parents had medical issues my whole life. I was a spectator and developed a philosophy based upon what I witnessed as I grew up. I think that people have a genetic pre-disposition for many things. Some of them are positive, like musical talent, and some are negative, like heart disease. While I don’t think that everyone in a musical family will grow up to be like Mozart, I do think that knowledge is power, especially when dealing with health. This is why doctors ask us about incidences of certain illnesses in our families. This data can give them a clue as to what might be going on in our bodies. My philosophy is similar to the Biblical phrase, as the twig is bent, so grows the tree. Sure, my twig may be bent towards some medical condition, but unless I put extra weight in that direction, my tree may not fall that way, so to speak. Likewise, if I provide support for the tree, I may avoid or delay the issue during my lifetime. This morning, I learned about new technology that has been developed to help us determine in which direction our DNA might lead us. With a bit of saliva, we could determine which medical issues our DNA may pre-dispose us to developing. It’s called the Lab-on-a-Chip. It was developed by Chris Toumazou, Regis Professor of Engineering at the Imperial College in London. He is the head of the Center for Bio-Inspired Technology. What I especially like about this new device is that while it tells us what might be lurking in our DNA, is does so in private. There are companies now which do this, but they hold our results. This is a little disconcerting to me. The new device matches results of our DNA sample to those which line up with several known diseases in the privacy of our own homes. It tells us that we have a match and, therefore, are pre-disposed to this issue. We can then make life-style decisions to avoid pushing our genetic trees over in the wrong direction, thus perhaps either delaying or avoiding certain diseases or other medical issues in the future. My father had lung issues of his own creation. He smoked, and it ruined his health. So did my mother. Her health was awful too, but for more reasons than smoking. Neither of them got any exercise or ate in a healthy way. I learned from their mistakes. Although I could not avoid the asthma that growing up around smokers has caused me, I never smoked myself and avoided the lung cancer that took my brother’s life (he smoked for 20 years). I also avoided the need for a lung transplant that my sister required because she pushed her genetics (with obesity). I have avoided their fate, although my tree was bent in the same direction by growing up in the same environment. When the Lab-on-a-Chip is available for all of us, it will be a game changer. It will help us understand what we should research specifically so that we do not go down that road. I think genetics and life-style decisions are the holy grail of the future of medicine. It won’t be take two aspirin and call me in the morning. It will be eat two apples and call me in a month. Would you make specific changes in your life-style if you knew 100% that it would help you avoid developing a terrible medical problem?