Would it help if you knew you are prone to risk of Alzheimer’s disease, breast cancer or heart attack? How about knowing that your hair cold start graying in your twenties or maybe go bald in your thirties? I bet you would go all out to take the best preventive measures available if you knew that you are likely to be attacked by a disease.
That’s precisely what the personal DNA testing offers, predict the possible risks of the disease you are prone to and by warning you, gives you the hope and opportunity to take preventive measures to avoid or at least put off the diseases to an extent.
DeCode Genetics, a Iceland based company offered the first commercial DNA-based diagnostic tests for under $1000. DNA tests are not new, but what makes this different is the test called ‘Decode Me’. It can test more than 1 million gene variants instead of a few genes.
So, you subscribe to ‘Decode Me’ by paying up $985 and send in a cheek swab to DeCode. You are then given access to a password controlled website and find out all the personal information you want to after a few weeks.
Such a test may help people identify the possible risks, but to what extent it would motivate them to take preventive measures, it’s hard to tell. And more over the pricing is a bit too steep considering the fact that a family of four would have to shell out $4000 for their individual tests and that’s a whopping amount.
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