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would you want to know how long you’re likely to live

Question of the day.

Would you want to know how long you’re likely to live <assuming you don’t get pushed off a cliff by your spouse)>?

“I don’t know why he saved my life. Maybe in those last moments he loved life more than he ever had before.

Not just his life – anybody’s life; my life.

All he’d wanted were the same answers the rest of us want.

Where did I come from? Where am I going? How long have I got?”

–

Deckard in Blade Runner

=========

Whew.

Knowing how long you would live. Now there is an interesting question. I bring it up because some scientists/doctors/smart-people-I-don’t-know-what-they-do have developed a blood test that could predict how long you will live (it’s called a “Telomere test” to all you biology freaks).

Do I truly believe the test is accurate? Nope.

Do I believe the test is infallible? Nope.

Do I believe the test can directionally tell you how long you could live? <assuming you do not get pushed off a cliff or stand in front of moving buses>

Yup.

But.

I think the real question is … do I believe people want to know?

Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm …. that one is tougher.

Here is what I do know.

I would.

I would take it in a second. I would have taken it when I was 21 <so I don’t think my point of view has varied over time>.

Would most other people? <here is the answer below>

The Guardian ran a poll on their website. I believe they had several thousand respondents:

Would you take a test that tells you how long you’re likely to live?

A blood test that can show how fast you’re ageing and estimates how long you have left to live will go on sale later this year. Will you be taking it?

50.9% Yes

49.1% No

So.

Basically the world is split on this. 50% would and 50% wouldn’t.

Was I surprised? Gosh. I don’t know. I didn’t know what to expect.
But suffice it to say that there are plans in Britain to offer an over-the-counter blood-test kit that would allow you to learn your biological age (and, from there, to estimate how much longer you might live).

Anyway.

This test measures the length of your telomeres, which are like caps at the end of each of your chromosomes. Every time a cell divides, its telomeres are shortened. The more dividing that’s gone on, the more your body has aged.

Therefore short telomeres suggest advanced age (that’s the everyday person’s definition of how this hifalutin test works).

The thought that this telomeres blood test might serve as a potential measure of life expectancy takes on a new perspective when the test kit moves out of a scientific lab and into your own home.

I guess the main question for anyone considering such a test has to be, of course, whether you really want to know how much time you still have left.

It is an interesting question. And kind of a dilemma <because what do you do when you do know?>.

I scanned a bunch of articles and of course everyone started the whole domino affect discussion <who do you tell, what do you do, what about insurance companies, all that crap>.

Who cares?

Really the only question resides within you.

And me.

Me?

I would want to know.

Why?

“We all die. The goal isn’t to live forever, the goal is to create something that will.”

–

Chuck Palahniuk

I would then know how long I had left to create something that could last forever.

And maybe the knowledge would give me the strength to make whatever changes I would need to make to create something that may ‘live forever.’

Because it would really suck to run out of time before that happened.

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May 23, 2011 by Bruce

Written by Bruce

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