IF YOU are fit and healthy, don鈥檛 waste money signing up for whole-body scans or blood and DNA tests which claim to predict diseases you might get in the future.
So says a report compiled by British doctors for the London-based charity Sense About Science. They say such tests might actually endanger your health by providing false reassurance that you won鈥檛 develop a disease, or incorrectly predicting that you will.
鈥淲e鈥檙e principally concerned about two things,鈥� says Andrew Green, a family doctor in East Yorkshire and a co-author of the report. 鈥淥ne is whether the tests give scientifically valid results. The second is the impact of testing on people.鈥�
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If a smoker鈥檚 cholesterol levels are normal, for example, they may feel they are healthy enough to continue smoking. The tests themselves may also pose risks: whole-body scans expose the subject to unnecessary radiation, while colonoscopies have a one-in-a-thousand chance of perforating the bowel.
Green鈥檚 advice is simply to follow the usual guidelines for healthy living, such as eating sensibly and taking regular exercise.
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